26 NOVEMBER 1994, Page 47

James Buchan

I liked David Kynaston's The City of London: A World of its Own (Chatto, £25), for it brings literacy to a part of town aban- doned since the time of Keynes. James Grant's Money of the Mind (Farrer, Strauss, Giroux, $35) is about as hilarious as any study of credit can be. Elizabeth Bishop's Letters (One Art: The Selected Letters, Chatto, £25) have haunted me all year.