Recent Paperbacks

Rupert Brooke, His Life and His Legend John Lehmann (Quartet pp. 178, £2.95). Brooke's romantic view of modern warfare was discredited by the carnage that took place after his death in 1915, especially as his poetry Was, used by politicians to continue the slaughter. It he had lived he might have grown in stature. A sympathetic reassessment. Debts of Honour Michael Foot (Picador pp. 223' £2.50). Fourteen portraits including Isaac Foot, Hazlitt, Beaverbrook, Bertrand Russell, Rarl; dolph Churchill, Thomas Paine, Defoe, and the Duchess of Marlborough. Foot's radical heroes have little in common, which IS refreshing, and his essay on Disraeli shows that he understands the Tory party better than the Tories do.

Maria Callas Arianna Stassinopoulos (Hamlyn pp. 429, £1.75). The most controversial and temperamental singer of the century. Miss S has used her Greek background to open up previously impenetrable mysteries and has cleverly interwoven the more public Callas episodes with private detail and scholarly research.

Queen Victoria's Sketchbook Marina Warner (Papermac pp. 224, £3.95). How we amused ourself. From her drawings, watercolours, letters and diaries Queen Victoria emerges as an affectionate, hard-working and spontaneous observer of her times, filling more that 50 albums.

Fire on the Mountain Anita Desai (King Penguin pp. 146, £1.95). The Indian novel that nearly won last year's Booker Prize. An old woman seeks solitude in the Simla Hills but her greatgranddaughter is living under the same roof. Independent as they try to be, old family rifts reemerge leading to a violent end. A moving account of old age — and India.

The Making of Jazz James Lincoln Collier (Papermac pp. 543, £5.95). Humphrey Lyttleton says this is the best comprehensive history of jazz ever written and deserves to be regarded as the standard work. Collier says of Lyttleton, 'His style is clean, precise, unpretentious and forceful and, more than most European players, he attacks behind the beat.'

Homesickness Murray Bail (Penguin pp. 317, £1.95). A send-up of the travel business. Thirteen Australians on a world-wide package tour set out to do some very conventional sightseeing but find themselves in some bizarre situations. 'Traipsing through the museums of their own obsessions', says Patrick White.

Tales from a Long Room Peter Tinniswood (Arrow pp. 128, £1.50). A Brigadier recalls some unlikely tales from the golden era of cricket when MCC played the Pygmies and the Convocation of Canterbury took on the Coptic Martyrs Xl. Some pretty earthy criticism of the Boers, the Wops, Hitler and the mother-in-law, and some fine clichés from E. R. Dexter.

They Were Defeated Rose Macaulay (OUP pp. 445, £2.95). An historical novel first published in 1932, 24 years before The Towers of Trebizond. Set in the Cambridge of Milton's day and written in the idiom of the 1640s, it shows how the Anglican-Puritan clash almost destroyed the University as a place of learning.

The Village in the Jungle Leonard Woolf (OUP PP. 179, £2.50). Woolf spent three years in Ceylon as a colonial administrator and this, his first novel published in 1913, shows some dissatisfaction with colonial justice, a positive fear of the beasts of the jungle and a remarkable understanding of the Ceylonese people.

Loosely Engaged Christopher Matthew (Arrow PP. 150, £1.25). The sequel to Diary of a Somebody provides further insights into the modestly pretentious life-style of Simon Crisp and the problems that fine aspirations bring him. No detail is too small for a mention.

A Terrible Beauty is Born Ulick O'Connor (Granada pp. 192, £1.50). Yeats's description of the 1916 Easter Rising is the title for this account of that turbulent decade in Ireland. Dublin's glittering social life and pageantry conceal a bitter discontent which inevitably breaks through. A Stylish personal view of the troubles.

Peake's Progress: Selected Writings and Drawings of Mervyn Peake ed. Maeve Gilmore (Penguin pp. 576, £5.95). A blockbuster for Peake's rapidly-growing fan club. Only since his death in 1968 has the author of Gormenghast WO n recognition as poet, playwright, writer of short stories, nonsense verse and radio scripts, illustrator, painter and theatrical designer. Blake With a sense of humour, it is said.

The Unsafe Sky William Norris (Arrow pp. 223, £1.50). A frightful catalogue of disasters, nearmisses and aircraft design faults which have been hushed up for various very disturbing reasons. Excellent reading for an air controllers' strike.

Sportswatcher's Guide Paul Wade (Collins pp. 248, £3.95). How to unravel the high-speed cliches, technical terms and rules of Saturday afternoons on the telly; 100 regularly-televised events explained with diagrams and photographs. Pretty helpful on snooker, and a kiggle kaggle, by the way, is a curling stone that wobbles.

Face the Future David Owen (OUP pp. 279, £2.95). Some differences with Shirley (Politics is for People, Penguin) on private education, for aspiring SDP ministers to mull over. A circumspect doctrinal work for post-Croydon thinkers.

The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin Vladimir Voinovich (King Penguin pp. 269, £2.50). A Soviet comedy and a rich tale of bureaucratic bungling. An awkward boy in the Red Army settles into village life, and the postmistress, and won't listen to anyone, not even Stalin. The author escaped to Bavaria last November.

Exotic Pleasures Peter Carey (Picador pp. 192, £1.95) Published in hardback last year as The Fat Man in History (Faber). Ten Australian short stories ranging from the suburbs of Melbourne to the tropics of Queensland.

Delius as I Knew Him Eric Fenby (Faber pp. 265, £3.95). For six years after Delius went blind Fenby wrote down all his compositions and often helped to create them. He met the great musicians of the time and recorded these impressions (later used in a Ken Russell film) after Delius's death in 1934.

JAMES HUGHES-ONSLOW