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To the Editor: While I very much enjoyed Kevin Boyle's review of Tony Horwitz's ''Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War'' (Oct. 30), I found the following comment curious: ''It's impossible to read this fine book without thinking about the modern-day Browns, soldiers of a vengeful God, seeking righteousness in a fierce burst of violence, justice in the shedding of blood. Maybe Horwitz decided that he didn't need to make the comparison explicit.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To the Editor: Two of the misleading impressions left by Jonathan Mahler's review of my book ''The Rights of the People'' (June 12) deserve clarification. My research was framed less by my first thought on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 -- ''There go our civil liberties'' -- than by my more nuanced second thought, as explained in sentences that followed immediately: ''It was a rash prediction, I knew, and I quickly re-formed it into a question about how firmly we would hold our liberties in such a time of testing, whether the Bill of Rights would sustain us. I figured there would be deterioration, but how much?'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several letters to the editor in response to articles published in previous issues including "Name Check," in the September 16, 2007 issue, "The Iranian Time Bomb," in the September 9, 2007 issue, and "Revisiting the Canon Wars," in the September 16, 2007 issue.

Presents letters to the editor in response to articles in previous issues of "The New York Times Book Review." "Dangerous Characters," an essay by Benjamin Kunkel focusing on the effects of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; "In a Single Atom," which reviewed "The Universe in a Single Atom" by Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama.