J ONATHAN M IRSKY
Mencken: The American Iconoclast: The Life and Times of the Bad Boy of Baltimore by Marion Rodgers (OUP, £19.99). There was never a journalist like H. L. Mencken (1880-1956). In the years when there was no television and American print journal
ists were stars, Mencken was a galaxy. A fabulously entertaining writer, an authority on the American language, very funny, a libertarian — and an implacable hater of Roosevelt, censors, lynchers, communists, labour unions and most politicians.
The High Road to China: George Bogle, the Panchen Lama and the First British Expedition to Tibet by Kate Teltscher (Bloomsbury, £20). The Scot George Bogle was the first British envoy — of the East India Company — to Tibet. In 1775 he spent six months with the Panchen Lama and spoke of him with the same affection and respect, almost in detail, as those who meet the present Dalai Lama. A vivid look at a lost world.
My third favourite book, read again after the BBC series, was Bleak House. Everyone loved the film. This is even better. What a Christmas present!
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