21 NOVEMBER 1998, Page 44

Leanda de Lisle

The funniest book I've read this year was William Sutcliffe's novel Are You Experi- enced? (Penguin, £5.99), about teenagers backpacking in India. It performed the mir- acle of making me feel young again and is the perfect stocking-filler for anyone in their gap year between school and universi- ty. As for overrated books, that's a tricky one. I'm still ploughing my way through Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad (Viking, £25). It's a thorough history, but Beevor is no Cecil Woodham Smith and I'm not swept along by it. I was probably the last person in Britain to read Louis de Bernieres' Cap- tain Corelli's Mandolin (Minerva, £6.99): As with Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong, an irritat- ing ending marred what was otherwise a very moving romantic novel.