18 APRIL 1992, page 30

Sometimes I Sits And Thinks . . .

Nigel Spivey DIDEROT: A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY by P.N. Furbank Secker & Warburg, £25, pp. 524 D iderot saw himself as a second Socrates. It is a sign of failed aspirations that,......

Take With A Pinch Of Salt

Cressida Connolly PILLARS OF GOLD by Alice Thomas Ellis Viking, £14.99, pp. 181 T his novel is the literary equivalent of good plain cooking. It is reassuringly famil- iar and......