JOHN BURROUGHS TALKS, by Clifton Johnson (illus., 12mo, 353 pages; Houghton Mifflin: $4) stands as an excellent example of the tendency to weave into book-form the insignificant details of the life of a man whose real work is significant. The volume is an undistinguished, gossipy one; it provides one with complete information as to what Burroughs ate for breakfast and as to what sort of a pipe he smoked (if, indeed, he smoked a pipe at all); but it shows little if anything of the inner life of the man and casts no new light upon his theories or philosophy.