Varmint hunting is a sport of champions. The greatest varminters walk as gods above oceans of lowly mortals. Varmint hunting commands discipline, respect, patriotism, dignity, divinity, and resolve.

THE VARMINTS (287 pp.)—Peggy Bennett—Knopf ($2.50). “The nights in the spring of 1939 fell with an epic quality of warm air and light-headedness and sap swimming and voluptuous dreaming. The Samsonic ...

I WAS desperately tired of people — even the benevolent and harmless people with whom I usually associate. It was n’t that they had n’t been nice to me. Old ladies had lured me to church socials with ...