Jane Ridley
The best heavyweight biography that I have read this year is Tim Jeal's Stanley (Faber, £25). Wise, fair and deeply researched, Jeal's book sets the record straight on the great Victorian explorer, exonerating him from allegations of racism, brutality and suppressed homosexuality. Jeal has an extraordinary tale of African adventure to tell and he tells it superbly well. A. N. Wilson's enjoyable and erudite novel Winnie and Wolf (Hutchinson, £17.99) is the story of the romance between Hitler and Winfred Wagner, the composer's English daughter-in-law. Wilson succeeds in making Hitler into a believable character, as well as giving fascinating insights into the worlds of Weimar Germany and Wagnerian opera.AnAlpha bet of Aunts by C. M. Dawnay (Jonathan Cape, £14.99) is the perfect solution to everyone's Christmas present problem: a word-game book to be enjoyed by children and adults alike, deliciously illustrated by Mungo McCosh.
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