Pure pleasure. Joseph Mitchell was a legend in his time. Mostly during the 1940s and 1950s, he wrote loving, extraordinarily vivid, short pieces for The New Yorker. He was a master at painting character, and place, in swift strokes. In many ways this book, the definitive collection of his pieces, depicts the New York (and environs -- let's not forget the great pieces on the Oystermen in the Great South Bay, or the rivermen in Edgewater, NJ) of its time as well as any ever written.  (NYC61, $16.95)