18 DECEMBER 1993, Page 86

SPEd n rATOR

ANNUAL

THE BOOK OF THE YEAR,

Edited by Dominic Lawson

'Mr Mellor should, of course, have remembered the advice of Arthur Hugh Clough: "Do not adultery commit, Advantage rarely comes of it."'

P.D. JAMES

One chilly night... an attractive middle-aged lady was wrapped in a fur coat.

"Do you realise how many animals had to die for that coat on your back?" a politically correct young person asked her.

"Yes," she said. "And do you realise how many animals I had to sleep with to get it there?"'

JOHN MORTIMER

'Whenever I am sent a new book on the lively arts, the first thing I do is look for myself in the index.'

JULIE BURCHILL `What pop moguls have failed to pick up is that teenagers are not monosyllabic mutants from some- place else: we are intelligent life and deserve to be addressed as such.'

EMMA FORREST (aged 15) £20.00 net

HarperCollinsPublishers