22 NOVEMBER 1997, page 45

Rupert Christiansen

John Banville's ventriloquistic imperson- ation of a Bluntian art historian in The Untouchable (Picador, £15.99) is a tour de force. For the real thing, I then turned to the new......

Peter J. M. Wayne

Hidden Agendas: Politics, Law and Disorder (Hamish Hamilton, £20), Derek Lewis's insider account of his ill-fated time as Director General of the Prison Service, is a must for......

Anthony Blond

Dictionaries like the OED, encyclopaedias like the 1926 Britannica and guide- books like the Routards are my favourite reading. The Routards guides, many in English, now cover......