Jo Grimond
My first two choices are impeccable, if bor- ing — the choice, not the books — Graham Greene' s Monsignor Quixote (Bodley Head) and Kenneth Harris's Attlee (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). They slip down like oysters and, like oysters, leave a tang behind. My third, H.H.Asquith: Letters to Venetia Stanley (OUP) though its merits are considerable I choose chiefly for Raymond Asquith's letter on Venetia's marriage to Edwin Montague:
... you say you wouldn't like to go to bed with Edwin ... I shouldn't myself .... but women are not refined, delicate minded creatures like you and me: none of them have much physical squeam- ishness and Venetia far less than most ... what frightened her was not the prospect of the bed being too full but the board being to empty ... she concluded that it would be all right and decided to flout the interested disapproval of Mr H. H. and the idiotic indignation of Miss V. Asquith'.
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