Martin Gayford
Hilary Spurling's marvellous The Unknown Matisse (Hamish Hamilton, £25) reveals the creator of so much tranquil, joyous colour and space as a driven neurotic and martyr to insomnia — the best new biogra- phy I've encountered this year. I also much enjoyed George Melly's Don't Tell Sybil (Heinemann, £17.99), a memoir of the author's mentor — a cantankerous, alco- holic and sexually rapacious Belgian surre- alist. Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food (Viking, £20) and Mark Kurlansky's Cod: A Biography (Jonathan Cape, £12.99) are two splendid books about eating which put the subject in a sweeping historical and cultural context — with recipes attached. Finally, I have just finished William Dalrymple's The Age of Kali (HarperCollins, £19.99), a panorama of the Indian subcontinent today, poised between chaos, westernisa- tion and immemorial tradition, which sus- tained me through a long and tiresome journey (though a picnic compared to many of those described). It is, like Dal- rymple's previous books, erudite, engaging and entertaining.
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