Alastair Forbes
Not, like Sir Raymond Carr (The Spectator, 23 November), possessing a beautiful bas-bleu ducal daughter-in-law (relationship undisclosed, doubtless for reasons of space) to spend a hundred words on puffing, I return for yet another Christmas choice to bonny Broadchalke, whence Richard Lamb sends forth not one but two of the most important politico- historical books of the year. These are Churchill as War Leader (BloomsburY, £16.99) and The Drift to War (BloomsbUrY, £9.99). Both should be made Must Reading for universities and sixth forms, as well as MPs (fourth form).
Robert Conquest's final version of Stalin (Weidenfeld, £18.99) kept me distracted during the uncertain days of August, when one wondered hopefully if there were not in Boris Yeltsin a little touch of Platon Karataev in the night or what — a puzzle still not solved. Since 1985 I have been reading a lot of the work of Nina Berberova, but in French translation. Now she is beginning to be made available in English (Three Novels, Chatto, £10.99) and I strongly recommend this late-flowering lady of letters whose fascinating monologue as she was driven round St Petersburg after a lifetime away was compulsive viewing on French television. Like my friend Isaiah Berlin (The Crooked Timber of Humanity, HarperCollins £5.99), she thinks Nabokov by far the greatest Russian writer of the present century, a view a rereading of him invariably confirms.
I enjoyed Paddy Leigh Fermor's inimitable descriptions of his Travels with a Duke in the High Andes under the leader- ship of dear dead Robin Fedden. (Three Letters from the Andes, John Murray, £10.95). I thought Quentin Crewe's autobiography, Well, I Forget the Rest (Hutchinson, £17.99), positively Hyperion to those two bloated satyrs Kingsley Amis and Bron Waugh, neither of whose curate's eggs had many unsmelly parts. Gore Vidal (A View from the Diners Club, Deutsch, £13.99) was, as usual, ten times better com- pany. I also enjoyed a curious little jeu d'esprit by the famous Sinologist Simon Leys (The Death of Napoleon, Quartet, £12.95). Also a wonderful and wonderfully illustrated book by that best of Mitford writers, Debo Devonshire (Farm Animals, Kyle Cathie, £12.99, £6.99). Highly recommended for all ages.
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