The Samurai, by Shusaku Endo (Vintage/Aventura, $7.95). Among the handful of Japanese novelists writing today whose works are available in English, Shusaku Endo heads the list with an impressive oeuvre which includes Silence, When I Whistle, Wonderful Fool, The Sea and Poison, and Volcano (the latter two recently published in paperback from Taplinger, $5.95 each). As in Silence (which was favorably compared by reviewers to the works of Graham Greene), The Samurai is based on a true story and has as its central theme the meaning of Christ's love as encountered by a Japanese convert and a Western missionary. A minor samurai in the service of a powerful lord goes on a diplomatic mission to Mexico, Madrid and Rome just before the Tokugawa shogunate's edict (which closed off Japan to the West for over 200 years). Velasco, a Spanish missionary with ambitions to become bishop of Japan, accompanies as translator. Using these two characters and their vastly different points of view, Endo weaves an intricate, fascinating tale of their historic trip across the oceans and the ironic fate that awaits them both.

The Four Wise Men, by Michel Tournier; translated by Ralph Manheim (Vintage/Aventura, $8.95). The exceptionally handsome Aventura line reprints the best in contemporary world fiction, ranging from the memoirs of Wole Soyinka to the stories of Julio Cort,azar and novels by Ariel Dorfman, Manuel Puig, and Salman Rushdie. Last year the series published Michel Tournier's The Ogre -- a novel acclaimed as one of the greatest of post-war France. In this book Tournier relates the stories of the three wise men, and of a fourth, who came from India, never made it into the Christmas legend, and yet also learned of Christ and his teaching. Of all Tournier's novels -- including Friday and Gemini -- this may be the most inviting. NONFICTION

Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam & Cambodia, by Arnold R. Isaacs (Vintage, $9.95). This history of the final act of the Vietnam tragedy covers the harrowing events of the war's three last years: the conclusion of America's military effort, the failure of the illusory peace agreement, the attack in force by North Vietnamese regulars, the collapse of the U.S.- backed regimes in South Vietnam and Cambodia. Particularly moving are the pages on the last desperate hours before the fall of Saigon: as the Marine guards leave the American Embassy by helicopter -- "In the courtyard below, while looters carried their booty away from the building, a few of the abandoned evacuees were still staring up at the roof. Some in a last desperate gesture, waved . . . letters from American sponsors, embassy identity cards, whatever papers they thought would entitle them to leave with the Americans." The author was the Saigon correspondent of the Baltimore Sun.

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft For Young Writers, by John Gardner (Vintage, $4.95). Not everyone may want to write like the late John Gardner, but no one could go wrong by listening to his wise advice about the art of the storyteller. Like Strunk and White on style, or Graves and Hodge on English prose, this volume may go on to become a classic, remarkable for its wide reading in (Chaucer to Calvino), enthusiasm for, and deep commitment to the possiblities of fiction.

Science: Its History and Development Among the World's Cultures by Colin A. Ronan (Facts on File, $14.95). This wide-ranging and profusely illustrated book is especially good on non-Western approaches, with long chapters devoted to Chinese, Hindu and Indian, and Arabian scientific accomplishments. In the Chinese chapter we learn how Western preconceptions could stymie the inquisitive spirit. "The Chinese observed and recorded sunspots, which were never recorded in Europe until the seventeenth century because of the prevalent belief there of the perfection of celestial bodies, a perfection which would not allow the Sun to appear spotted. The Chinese sunspot records, which start in 28 BC, are the most complete we have." In the Arabian chapter, we encounter the 12th-century astronomer ibn Rushd struggling successfully to reduce the number of concentric spheres necessary to account for celestial motion from 50 to 47. This is a fascinating and extraordinarily well-designed book. CHILDREN'S

The Devil's Storybook, by Natalie Babbitt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $3.45; ages 6-up). Stories about the Evil One -- and especially that delightful subgenre called "deals with the devil" -- have been around since at least as long ago as that famous pact made between God and Satan that leads to Job's myriad troubles. Natalie Babbitt's parables are of a different breed: part tall tale, part Tolstoyan moral lesson, completely delightful. In one story, for instance, the devil wants someone to crack walnuts for him, so he plants a pearl in one of the nuts. He figures that the greedy soul who finds the pearl will crack all the other walnuts in the hope of finding another one. An old peasant takes the nut, opens it, pops the contents into her mouth, and goes on her way. The devil, convinced he's given her the wrong nut, opens first one, then another, looking for the pearl -- but he never finds it. Instead he gets a bellyache from over-eating. The old peasant, by the way, had merely slipped the pearl under her tongue and was not greedy for another.

The Real Thief, by William Steig (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $2.95; ages 6-up). Everyone likes to get two for the price of one -- and in this case the reader gets a winning fable about loyalty, honesty, and human weakness and a small collection of Steig drawings. When the king's treasury starts to suffer from jewel theft, the attention of the court focuses on Gawain the Goose. Gawain knows he's innocent of any wrong-doing but is convicted anyway and sentenced to the tower. Instead he escapes and in the wild eventually learns of the true culprit and of forgiveness and understanding. A touching story, The Real Thief should please grown-ups as much as kids.