Bibliofile

Want to be a writer without the pain of actually writing a book? Preserve long-forgotten articles by that one-man writing industry, Khushwant Singh. In the last year, at least three men anxious to see their names on the backs of books have turned up with four different sets of his old articles, some of them at least 40 years old, so long ago that they were a discovery of sorts for the author himself. The result: a "blitzkrieg" of Khushwantalia. The latest in these compilations of old stuff in new covers is Women, Love & Lust (Books Today).

For every hundred authors who write for the pleasure of seeing their names on the backs of books, you get one who writes for the sheer pleasure of it. Like Mildred Benson, better known as author Carolyn Keene of the Nancy Drew books, who wrote until the day she died last week at the age of 96. Beginning as an anonymous ghostwriter, Benson churned out her tales of the fearless teenage sleuth, producing 13 in one year when she was working full-time as a newspaper reporter.