Taki
This was the year of a way of life lamentably long gone. My favourite books had all to do with persons and events that live only in our memories. Enchantress, by Christine Sutherland (Murray, £20), is the story of Princess Marthe Bibesco, the beau- tiful Romanian who was admired by Mar- cel Proust, Edith Wharton and Andre Gide. It went on to win the Prix de l'Acadernie Frangaise. It chronicles the collapse of the aristocratic order and her loss of wealth and privilege. But what a life!
Tom Hiney's Raymond Chandler (Chatto & Windus, £16.99) is a sizzler of a biogra- phy. Chandler was a drunk, a great writer, a man who fought bravely in the Great War, a good husband and a good business- man. Evelyn Waugh called him the best writer in America. Chandler's best friend — one he spoke to non-stop and was always photographed with — was Taki, a cat.
Name Dropping by Barnaby Conrad, (Wild Coconuts, $14.95) is the perfect memoir of the Fifties. Conrad uses El Matador, his San Francisco piano bar, as background. His tales of the literate and famous are wonderful, told by a man whom Papa Hemingway envied because Conrad fought professionally as a matador, was among the best amateur boxers, and wield- ed a hell of a pen. Among other books, he wrote the definitive book on bullfighting and Manolete.
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