25 NOVEMBER 1989, Page 40

Ferdinand Mount

SIMON Schama's Citizens (Viking, £20) has-been the ante-post favourite since early on in the betting, but I cannot forbear a side bet on The Last Forest (Dent, £16.95) by Oliver Rackham, a charming and pro- voking history of England's best preserved mediaeval forest with its rides and coppices and pollards and coney burrows still nest- ling virtually intact within earshot of the M11.