25 MARCH 2000, page 45

A Beauty As Tough As Old Boots

Henry Hobhouse PEONIES by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall Weidenfeld, £30, pp. 384 T his fine book answers several needs. It tells the history of the plant which stretched in the......

Clueless In Shanghai

Andrew Barrow WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS by Kazuo Ishiguro Faber, £16.99, pp. 313 K azuo Ishiguro's fifth novel is a sort of detective story. The hero is an English detective — the......