Piercing The Mysteries

Peter Levi PAGANS AND CHRISTIANS by Robin Lane Fox Viking, £17.85 I t is not so often that one gets the chance to review a full and nourishing book about an important subject......

Christopher Hawtree

After packing 9,000 of them into tea- chests, I felt as though I never wanted to see a book again. The addiction soon returns. Christopher Hope's The Hottentot Room (Heinemann),......

Harold Acton

Flora Fraser's Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma Hamilton (Weidenfeld and Nicol- son) has converted me to a character I used to dislike and filled me with admiration for her......

Andrew Gimson

`Have your written any books?' I once heard a girl ask Peter Quennell. 'You are very pretty,' he said, 'but not very well educated.' Horror of being rude to authors is not,......

Colin Welch

Kind people would be very sorry if they knew how little I read except in the course of duty. Well, apart from those I've already pontificated about in these pages, I was......

Alistair Forbes

Since, many pre-Hype-Hype-Huirrah years ago, Cyril Connolly farmed out his pile of Booker Prize jury fodder to me for pre- liminary testing (the only plum I managed to pull out......