Recent paperbacks

The Duchess of Windsor Diana Mosley (Sidgwick & Jackson pp. 174, £1.75). A sympathetic biography by someone who knew the Duke and Duchess well in Paris. If their controversial romance was a closely-guarded secret, their long years of retirement were even more mysterious. Lady Mosley tells a tale that's too bizarre to be fiction.

Oliver St John Gogarty Ulick O'Connor (Granada pp.348, £2.25) Surgeon, aviator, senator, playwright, athlete, 'one of the great lyric poets of the age' (said Yeats) and the wittiest man in London according to Asquith. Also the wittiest man in Dublin in the early days of the Free State. As for O'Connor he has been called a modern Boswell.

The Penguin Encyclopaedia of Chess ed. Harry Golombek (Penguin pp. 578, £4.95) Golombek, Harry (b.1 March 1911) is described by 'HG' as 'a prolific writer and translator of books on the game'. Terms and theories from sixth century India to Fischer and Karpov. Settle your chess arguments with 'Where's the Golombek?' Verdict of Thirteen, a Detection Club Anthology (Penguin pp.234, £1.50) Set up in 1932 the club included G.K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ronald Knox who wrote the rules. These 13 stories are by present members including Patricia Highsmith, H.R.F. Keating, Dick Francis and P.D. James. Each concerns a jury.

Edward James Philip Purser (Quartet pp.128, £3.95) Illustrated biography of the eccentric collector who became a key figure in the surrealist movement. A close friend of Whistler, Tchelichew, Dali, Magritte, the Huxleys, the Sitwells et al. Exploited by most people, especially by his wife Tilly Losch.

Bomber Command Max Hastings (Pan pp.489, £2.50) A critical look at the most controversial and costly British campaign of the Second World War. The tactics of area bombing and the Whitehall struggles of the complex men at the top. Memories have gained , in frankness, says Hastings, what they have lost in precision.

Romantic Royal Marriages Barbara Cartland (Express Books pp. 128, £2.95) The 299th book by the world's most prolific romantic novelist. Love-matches – not political ones – from William the Conqueror to the present day. Tactfully she avoids comment on her step-daughter (pictures however) but the Spencers are mentioned on the first page in connection with the Normans.

Sex in History Reay Tannahill (Abacus pp.463, £2.95) A panorama of sexual attitudes,customs and practices in all the world's major civilisations, and their influence on human development. Stone Age women dominated their men but mediaeval females were just chattles. Roman courtesans had a pretty good time.

How to Become a Virgin Quentin Crisp (Fontana pp. 192, £1.50). Once a Naked Civil Servant, now a star of stage and screen. Style is all-important, he still says, but his own ascetic style has changed since he first left these shores in 1977 to conquer the world's TV studios. 'I travel to be seen not to see'. What? Who, then, provides his endless stream of aphorisms and anecdotes?

Will G Gordon Liddy (Sphere pp.486, £1.75) The unrepentant autobiography of Nixon's Dirty Tricks chief at the Ellsberg and Watergate break-ins. No crime is too much to re-elect the President. Liddy got some credit for keeping silent but he now seems a bigger crook than was previously suspected.

Let's Parler Franglais Miles Kington (Penguin pp.96, 95p). Le quick method de parler comme Edward Eeece en 40 easy lessons, avec le traffic warden, dans un stately home ou dans Soho apres dark. Un morceau de gateau pour le Englishspeaker. All you need is a few old English clichés. Who's on First William F Buckley Jr (Penguin pp.275, £1.50) Blackford Oakes of the CIA gets caught up in the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and the beginnings of the Space Race. His mission, to make sure the Americans launch the first earth satellite not the Russians, is frustrated by the KGB, the US President and a girl called Sally. A didactic political yarn about American superiority.

A Married Man Piers Paul Read (Pan pp.286, £1.50) John Strickland, a clever middle-aged barrister, becomes a Labour candidate but his wife won't take his new life seriously. He takes a mistress who soon bores him by being too keen on his political career. Indecision and confusion, with ironical descriptions of Holland Park dinner parties, family holidays and Yorkshire gentry, eventually come to a violent conclusion.

Wild Nights Emma Tennant (Picador pp.128, £1.95) The North Wind brings the end of summer and the arrival of Aunt Zita, heralding chaos terror and enchantment for a mad Highland household. Autumn leaves turn into bats wearing waistcoats — amongst other wierd fairy-tale images. Aunt Thelma's appearance in the dead of winter has a very different effect. The odd thing about this wild fantasy is that the characters are really rather dour and practical.

The Penguin Cricketer's Companion ed. Alan Ross (Penguin pp.582, £2.95) In 19 years since the last edition, commercialism, television and bouncers have threatened the art of cricket writing. Dennis Lillee gets a chapter but Bishan Bedi, Clive Lloyd and Tom Graveney make more lyrical copy. Eighty nine authors including Dickens, Sassoon, Wodehouse, Pinter, Cardus and Swanton.

The Spinoza of Market Street Isaac Bashevis Singer (Penguin pp.191, £1.75) Eleven Jewish fables from Poland, most of them historical in setting, full of warmth and humour and the passion of Warsaw ghettos. (The title story is about an old professor who worships Spinoza). Since they were published in 1962 Singer has become a Nobel prizewinner and best seller — hence the paperback.

Second Sight Sally Emerson (Robin Clark pp.239, £2.95) A much-acclaimed first novel about a teenage girl who can't quite face the prospect of adulthood, but nor can she revert to childhood. Instead she has imaginary companions, the poet Shelley and restoration playwright Aphra Behn. Her mother's love affairs increase her isolation. Until Mum brings home a chap called Paul . . .

Philby of Arabia Elizabeth Monroe (Quartet pp. 332, £3.95) St John Philby, father of Kim the spy, is as complicated a subject as a biographer could find. Persian and Arabic scholar, economist and archaeologist, friend of Ibn Saud and T. E. Lawrence, a Muslim convert with households in England and Arabia. Fiery-tempered and fanatically hard-working. A man of extremes and an enigma.

James Hughes Onslow