Alasdair Palmer
For me, by far the best work of fiction pub- lished this year is a book of short stories: Bernard MacLaverty's Walking the Dog (Cape, £14.99). MacLaverty's pitilessly accurate observation, effervescent sense of the ridiculous, and bleak — though not utterly comfortless — vision, combine to make this sparkling collection funny, mov- ing and profound.
Bernard Williams's Shame and Necessity (University of California Press, £20, £11.95) continues his unsettling project of exploring the shape of ethics genuinely as opposed to superficially — freed from all influence of Christian religion. Follow- ing in the steps of Nietzsche, whose influ- ence Williams acknowledges, this is a stunning combination of classical scholar- ship and philosophical acumen which uses Homer and Greek tragedy to demonstrate that the pagan Greeks, far from being more primitive and less sophisticated ethi- cally than us, have in fact much to teach us. Williams' laudably liberal inclinations ensure that the lessons he hopes we will learn are not the ones Nietzsche thought the Greeks were there to teach. This is Nietzsche with the will to power taken out — kinder and gentler than the original, although not necessarily always more credi- ble.
As for history: Amy Erickson's Women and Property in Early Modem England (Routledge, £40) brilliantly defines a whole new field of study. Her pioneering analysis demonstrates how women have managed to manipulate hideously restrictive mar- riage laws to their own advantage although I have to admit I would say that. The author is my wife.
Two other books I found outstanding are Noel Malcolm's A Short History of Bosnia, (Macmillan, £17.50, £9.95) and latest edition of The Rough Guide to rdscany and Umbria (Rough Guides/Penguin, £8.99).
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