Have you bought your opera tickets? Very good, now go, phone or wire to the nearest book store and get all three of Carl Van Vechten's books. You'll thank me at the close of every chapter if you really care a whoop for real music. MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS [12mo., 244 pages, $1.60 net.] "When Carl Van Vechten's first book, 'Music After the Great War,' was published a year or so ago, I lifted a modest hymn in praise of it, and at the same time denounced the other music critics of America for the fewness of their books, and for the intolerable dulness of that few.... Now comes his second book, 'Music and Bad Manners'--thicker, bolder, livelier, better. In it, in fact, he definitely establishes a point of view and reveals a personality, and both have an undoubted attractiveness. In it he proves, following Huneker, that a man may be an American and still give all his thought to a civilized and noble art, and write about it with authority and address, and even find an audience that is genuinely interested in it ... a bird of very bright plumage, and, after Huneker, the best now on view in the tonal aviary."--H. L. Mencken in "The Smart Set." "Mr. Van Vechten is well known in the musical and literary worlds, and, while 'clever,' he is just and sound in his critical verdicts. He inspires students and entertains general readers.... His theory about the development of music appropriate to and especially for the 'movies' is unique.... There are many clever suggestions one can cull from a careful study of the book."--"The Literary Digest." "'Music and Bad Manners,' by Carl Van Vechten, tells many amusing stories to show what stupidities and brutalities may be perpetrated by persons of the so-called 'artistic temperament,' and on the other hand, what rudeness may be shown by an audience. These stories ... are vastly entertaining, but the title essay gives a misleading impression of Mr. Van Vechten's book, of its weight and poise, for it has much serious discussion and criticism and much historical information of value and significance. Music readers will skim with a smile the essay on 'Music and Bad Manners,' but they will read with absorbed attention the other half dozen essays of the volume. Mr. Van Vechten writes sound and not too technical English, and has the good taste and good temper to write without rancour."--"Vogue."