18 NOVEMBER 2000, Page 53

Anita Brookner

Not a good year. The most original novel was John Lanchester's Mr Phillips (Faber, £15.99), which has the benefit of a quirky and plausible central character and his progress through a single eventful day (a formula that never fails). I also liked Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers (Harper- Collins, £12.99), a refreshingly gentle story set in Venice, and Giles Waterfield's The Long Afternoon (Headline, £15.99). My great discovery was the late William Maxwell, whose effortless good manners inform all his beautiful writings, published by Harvill: Time Will Darken It (£6.99) and The Château (£12.99) are both classics of their kind. Maxwell's short stories, All the Days and Nights, should be savoured slowly.