2 DECEMBER 1989, page 38

Peter Levi

THIS year I have escaped reading any overrated books except lunatic ones about Shakespeare, which is an area that does not count. One of the best was the poems of Bei Dao (The......

Alastair Forbes

THOUGH chiefly conspicuous in these pages by the prolonged leaves of absence from them their editor is pleased to grant me, I am only too happy to confide to readers how greatly......

Richard Cobb

I ENORMOUSLY enjoyed Dominic Lieven's Russia's Rulers under the Old Regime (Yale, £27.50). The book repre- sents a highly successful combination of massive statistical tables......