Justin Cartwright
Graham Greene, A Life in Letters by Richard Greene (Little, Brown, £20). At a time when British fiction is stuttering, this is a very good moment to look back on the life and personality of Graham Greene, revealed in this exemplary collection of his letters.
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 by Christopher Clark, (Penguin, £12.99). It seems to me that we have mostly been guilty of a facile and convenient dismissal of Germany and its tragic history. This book, thorough, sensitive and well written, explains at least one part of the conundrum.
I have read a lot of novels this year, but the one that provided the most pain was Philip Roth's Exit Ghost (Cape, £16.99). It seems to record the end of an immense talent, while J. M. Coetzee's Dicay of a Bad Year (Harvill Secker, £16.99) a complex but thoroughly satisfying work, declares that Coetzee has moved to unexplored fictional territory.
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