Island of the Blue Macaws and Sixteen Other Stories, by James Ramsey Ullman. 320 pages. Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1953. Price, $3.50.

This collection of seventeen stories, selected by the author from the 40 he has written since 1939, makes good reading. As he says, “Geographically they cover a good deal of ground: from Times Square to the Amazon, the Alps to Hawaii, the Yankee Stadium to El Alamein.” All but one have been previously published in magazines.

Top Man is a good example of the way Mr. Ullman turns mountaineering into a good story, playing nationalities against one another as in The White Tower. Here we have the cautious Briton and the impulsive young American on an unconquered Himalayan peak. In Mountains of the Axis, the author deals with dare-devil young Nazi climbers of the war period who brought their new and shocking philosophy to the sport. Another mountaineering story, An Easy Day for a Lady, brings a climber back nostalgically to the scene of early climbs.

Mr. Ullman does best when he has nature as a background, in the jungle or in the high mountains. Then, in a straightforward manner, his characters move from beginning to end by the shortest course.

Evelyn Runnette