5 DECEMBER 1981, Page 17

Nikolai Tolstoy

From a year's reading it was hard to pick the three books that have given the greatest pleasure. But I have little doubt that Macmillan's five-volume New American World tops the list. Edited by David Quinn, it provides a near-exhaustive collection of accounts of the discovery of America up to 1612, all verbatim from the original sources. A desert island book, into which I shall dip for the rest of my life. For a closeup view of the past I choose Alan MacFarlane's The Justice and the Mare's Ale (Blackwell), with its vivid portrayal of dark deeds in a surprisingly law-abiding Carolean England. Finally, for the broad sweep, there is nothing to match the late Herbert Butterfield's majesterial The Origins of History (Eyre Methuen).