Alan Watkins

In a period when television creates largely spurious 'constitutional experts', it is a pleasure to welcome books by two real ones: Rodney Brazier's Ministers of the Crown (OUP,......

Paul Johnson

The handsome paperback edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musi- cians edited by Stanley Sadie in 20 volumes (Grove £350) has given me great pleasure this year. I......

Carole Angier

For the second year in a row (and probably much longer, but my memory doesn't go back that far), not one of my Best Books of the Year is English. That must mean some Best......

Raymond Carr

I like books which deal with great events and great topics. Such a great topic is the theme of Richard Fletcher's The Conver- sion of Europe: From Paganism to Christian- ity,......

Francis King

The best novel to come my way was Santa Evita (Anchor, £6.99) by the Argentinian Tomas Eloy Martinez — a superb reinven- tion of the life and, more importantly, the afterlife of......

Philip Hensher

A bumper year for fine biographies of artists; Calvin Tomkins on Duchamp (Chatto, £25), Jenny Uglow on Hogarth (Faber, £25) and Ian Gibson's tactful, scrupulous life of that old......

Nicholas Harman

Patrick O'Brian's The Yellow Admiral (HarperCollins, £6.99), perfect for bed- time, drove me back addicted to earlier books in his learned, cranky saga. Orlando Figes' A......