Simon Barnes
I bought a fancy new edition of Ulysses when covering a rugby match in Dublin. I won't offer an interpretation of the book — I believe it's been done before — but will say that the best new read in English is a reread of Ulysses. I am not sure about all the new bits of typography and punctuation and so on in this edition (Picador, 1997, edited by Danis Rose, £20, now available in paperback), but it is beautifully produced and, dressed up in its new finery, it is about as much like reading the book for the first time again as it possibly could be. I was delighted to pick up a book that has been cooking for years: the snappilY titled A Field Guide to Zambian Birds not found in Southern Africa. This is an essen- tial gap-plugger in a country that has the best birding in the world. It is by Dylan R Aspinwall, Carl Beel and Gabriel Ellison, published by the Zambian Ornithological Society, PO Box 33944, Lusaka, Zambia, US$25.
I haven't seen a sports book quite as stimulating as Ulysses this year; perhaps the best read is Jenny Pitman: The Autobiogra- phy (Partridge, £17.99), an excellent tale of and by the terror of Lambourn, one of the great trainers of our time.
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