24 NOVEMBER 1990, Page 38

Piers Paul Read Three excellent books which look east: Moscow!

Moscow! by Christopher Hope (Heinemann, £14.95), a poignant, funny and wonderfully written account of the state of the Russian soul; William Palmer's The Good Republic (Secker, £13.95), an exciting, unpretentious novel about the return of an exile to one of the Baltic republics; and Mark Swallow's Teaching Little Fang (Macmillan, £12.99), a delicate satire about life in a provincial Chinese city just before the massacre in Tiananmen Square — an exceptionally amusing and accomplished first novel. Closer to home, I was stimulated, entertained, educated and occasionally overawed by Roger Scruton's volume of essays, The Philosopher on Dover Beach (Carcanet, £18.95).