BEST AUTHOR BEST. : GRAYDON CARTER

The longtime Vanity Fair editor and author of the memoir '' When the Going Was Good '' wants more books about '' any part of New York that's not Brooklyn."

.-  What's the best book you've ever received as a gift?

Easy '' Queer People,'' by Carroll and Garrett Graham. Bette Midler gave it to me, and it was a complete revelation. It's about as funny and as clever as anything I've ever read.

.-  What's your favorite book no one else has heard of?

That's also easy '' Angel Pavement,'' by J.B. Priestley. It's a story about Depression-era London as told through the eyes of the employees of a small company. It moved me immensely when I first read it,  about 40 years ago.

.-  What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

Every Charles Dickens book aside from '' Great Expectations '' and '' Bleak House.''

.-  How did a founder of Spy magazine write a book that's so, well, nice?

Well, that's kind of you. As it happens, so were the people at Spy. Just because the magazine was somewhat astringent in writing about the featured acts of the day, the people who produced those stories were wickedly observant but otherwise collegial and civilized.

It was a dream office, really. And just so much fun.

.-  Tell a reader who doesn't travel in New York media circles why she / he should read your memoir.

Aside from the fact that I still have a final child to feed and educate, and the royalties won't hurt, let me think. 

I do think it captures what it was like during the giddy, glamorous days of magazines for much of the past half-century.

I was very fortunate to have been an editor during most of that period, and I wanted to tell younger readers what it was like, and to remind older readers of the fun they now miss.

 .-  You wrote that '' Act One '' and '' Young blood Hawke '' helped lure you to New York. What recent books might entice a younger Canadian to give the city a try?

Jay McInerney's '' Bright Lights, Big City '' would be a start. Although I don't think cocaine is the preferred rocket fuel that it once was.

Anything by Dawn Powell. '' Just Kids,'' by Patti Smith. '' The Pope Of Greenwich Village,'' by Vincent Patrick. And " Harriet the Spy,'' by Louise Fitzhugh.

The Publishing continues to Part [2]. The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.