David Hughes
For sensuality I go for Reflections on Blue Water (Harvill, £18), the latest of Alan Ross's fine reports on foreign parts, this time celebrating his lifelong liking for Ital- ian islands — Capri, Ischia, Lipari, past and present. For personality I choose Shirley Hazzard's Greene in Capri (Virago, £12.99), subtler than any weightier study of the master as a man, catching him unawares, nasty but nice, with a sharp affection. For depth I pick John Burnham Schwartz's moving Reservation Road (Orion, £6.99) which conjures the road death of a boy of ten into a thrilling rever- beration of all life's loves and losses: fiction from an American of 35 well set for his prime. Sensuality, personality, depth: all three books have all three qualities. As for bad books I take care to avoid them.
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