CHRISTMAS BOOKS I
Books of the Year
A selection of the best and most overrated books of the year, chosen by some of the Spectator's regular reviewers
Hugh Trevor-Roper
HOW agreeable, when so many new ver- sions are thrust upon us, to turn back to the first and best translation of the Greek New Testament! The Authorised Version of the Bible is an agreed classic; but how, we may ask, did a committee of clergymen achieve so uniform (and so uniformly grand) an English style? The answer is that they all used, as an acknowledged model and crib, the anonymous and heretical, but accurate and vigorous, version of William Tyndale. This new edition (Yale, £18.95) is both scholarly and readable, the spelling being modernised, and (like all Yale books) beautifully produced.
Is Science Necessary? (Barrie & Jenkins, £14.95) is a volume of essays on modern science and scientists by M. F. Perutz, a great Cambridge scholar — Nobel Prize Winner, O.M. — who also (though born Austrian) writes the most elegant English. He describes the various ways in which science has improved our lives, on the methods and philosophy of scientific re- search, on great modern scientists Rutherford, Planck, Einstein, Weitzmann — and, movingly, on his own experiences. He makes the most difficult subjects intel- ligible and writes with the warmth, human- ity and broad culture which has always characterised the great men of science. The most overrated book I have read? If I think a book overrated, I stop reading it.
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