Theodore Dalrymple

Dream Lovers by Jacqueline Willcox-Bailey (Wakefield Press, Australian $14.95) is a series of riveting interviews with several Professional and middle-class women in Australia......

Jane Gardam

Coleridge: Darker Reflections by Richard Holmes (HarperCollins, £19.99). Wonder- ful new accounts of, for instance, his rela- tionship with Nelson and the navy. Great empathy......

Peter Jones

In The East Face of Helicon (Oxford, £50), M. L. West, a fellow of All Souls, brings eastern texts (Babylonian, Hittite, biblical etc.) to bear upon Greek language and lit-......

Jonathan Keates

The book which made the biggest impres- sion on me this year was in fact a free, one- off magazine produced by the Italian clothing company Benetton, devoted to the theme of......

Edward Heathcoat Amory

Normally, I am a devotee of escapist litera - ture, but this was my year for books about the real world. Julian Barnes's new novel, England, England (Cape, £15.99), dissected......

Oleg Gordievsky

Without doubt Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin by Alexandra Richie (Harper- Collins, £29.99) is a major event in the book world. This unique work on German history is......