Geoffrey Wheatcroft
This was a vintage year for history books, none better than David Kynaston's Austerity Britain: 1945-1951 (Bloomsbury, £25), a cracking read with powerful resonances for those of us born under the Attlee Junta. My favourite line is from James Lees-Milne describing dinner with Harold Nicolson, who has decided that since 'socialism is inevitable' he must become a socialist, although 'the sad thing is that no one dislikes the lower orders more than he does'. God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain by Rosemary Hill (Allen Lane, £30) is admirable as biography, architectural history and psychoanalysis of a tormented soul. It didn't make me like Pugin's work much more, but that would be asking a good deal.
One tries to avoid mentioning books by friends, but not only have I actually read The Ghost by Robert Harris (Hutchinson, £18.99) when I haven't read any of the books on the Booker short-list (well, who has?), but it's a remarkable work, not just roman a clef but roman a these: a thriller which turns into a real political novel. It might even succeed in driving Tony Blair from office, unless there's something I've missed.
Previous page
