ANNA MARIA’S HOUSEKEEPING.  By Mrs. S.D.  Power.  Boston:  D. Lothrop & Co.  Price $1.00.  Of all the books that have been written about housekeeping there have been few that have treated the subject in a practical, common sense manner, and this is decidedly one of the best of the few.  The suggestions and directions contained in its pages are given in a pointed, straightforward manner, and appeal at once to the good sense of all housekeepers who will save themselves an infinity of trouble and worry and fret by giving them the consideration they deserve.  The twenty-four chapters of the book deal with different subjects, the all-important one, “How to make Housework Easier,” properly taking the lead.  Other chapters which we especially commend to housekeepers are those headed “A Good Breakfast,” “A Bill of Waste,” “A Comfortable Kitchen,” “Blue Mondays,” “Over the Mending Basket,” and “Helps that are Helps.”  There is not a chapter, however, but contains advice which, if heeded, would save ten times the cost of the book in a year, to say nothing of the time and trouble saved.

MATTHEW ARNOLD BIRTHDAY BOOK.  Edited by his daughters, Miss L. and K. Arnold.  Boston:  D. Lothrop & Co.  Price $1.00.  This beautiful little volume resembles in its general plan other birthday books, the usual blanks being left for autographs.  The selections have been made with great care, and under the direct supervision of Mr. Arnold himself, who contributes besides, an introductory poem, which is reproduced in fac simile.

A DOUBLE MASQUERADE.  By Charles R. Talbot.  Illustrated.  Boston:  D. Lothrop & Co.  Price $1.25.  Mr. Talbot’s reputation as a writer of brilliant stories for young readers is well established.  Few have been more successful in striking the popular vein.  The Juvenile libraries are rare that do not contain some one or other of his books, and happy the boy or girl who possesses them all.  “A Double Masquerade” is a romance of old Revolutionary times in Boston, in which historical characters take part.  It is a careful study of the events of those days, and the young reader will get a clearer idea from its pages of the struggle between the colonies and Great Britain, and of the men on both sides who were leaders in the Revolutionary movement, than from mere statistical and documentary history.  One of the features of the volume is a description of the battle of Bunker Hill, which a critic has pronounced to be “one of the most graphic and telling accounts ever written of that famous conflict.”  It is splendidly illustrated by Share, Merrill and Taylor.

YOUNG DAYS.  Illustrated.  Boston:  D. Lothrop & Co.  Price $.75.  This very attractive volume is made up of instructive stories for children, entertaining rhymes and verses, and most delightful pictures.

CAMBRIDGE SERMONS.

Few publications of like character have ever been received with a greater degree of favor, than the volume of sermons by Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D.D., of Shepard Memorial Church, Cambridge, Mass., published under the above title by D. Lothrop & Co.  The following expressions of opinion in letters to the publishers, are indicative of the general sentiment concerning them.