Rupert Christiansen
David Kynaston's Austerity Britain: 1945-1951 (Bloomsbury, £25) is one of the most vividly imagined, brilliantly researched and hugely entertaining books of social history I have ever encountered, and I can't wait for the next volume in the series. Julie Kavanagh's Rudolf Nureyev (Fig Tree, £25) is a magnificent example of the old school of biography — a warts-andall portrait of a flawed but intensely lovable human being who ranks as one of the great performing artists of the last century. I was dazzled by Andrew Hodges' One to Nine: The Inner Life of Numbers (Short Books, £12.99), even though I could barely grasp the complexity of the concepts it discusses. Couched in prose of superlative elegance, V. S. Naipaul's A Writer's People (Picador, £16.99) is full of a rare wisdom and moral honesty. The only new fiction I read was Lloyd Davies' subtle and touching Mister Pip (John Murray, £12.99).
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