The Road to West 43rd Street

Burger is a Southern gentleman of the old school, and this is his becomingly modest autobiography of growing up in a style long gone: Jackson, Mississippi, in the first decades of the century. His book's chief interest is that in 1945 Burger became, and remained for 30 years, an editor at the New York Times Book Review. He tells amusing stories of his years there under a rapid succession of senior editors, until Francis Brown came along to lend stability through the 1950s and '60s. The TBR's changing relationship with the rest of the paper, the expansion and increasing professionalism of the book review staff and the development of the daily book review are all recalled. Burger-interested in religious books (and astonished that other staffers were not), the Civil War and his family history-has a clear vision of the ways in which the Times has changed, not always for the better. The memoir includes a charming afterword by Eudora Welty. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)