J. G. Links
FOR ME it has been a J. R. Ackerley year. Having found that an old favourite, Hin- doo Holiday, stood up well after 37 years, I followed it with his other three books (My Dog Tulip, We Think the World of You, and My Father and Myself), his Letters and his Diaries, only to find, astonishingly, that a biography was on the point of publica- tion. This, Ackerley, by Peter Parker (Con- stable, £16.95), proved wholly admirable in its research, scholarship and narrative quality. The fact that I was left with a
considerable distaste for its subject, formerly rather a hero to me, was really a tribute to the author's detachment. I shall read Parker's next biography with a strong prejudice in its favour and hope he will find a subject worthy of his outstanding skills.
I do not share the view that Ackerley was a great literary editor but owe entirely to him the discovery of Mrs Gaskell's Wives and Daughters (Penguin Classics, £3.99), certainly a book of the year for me and the audience of one I read it to, Finally, lest your other correspondents overlook Dick Francis, as they are apt to, after a couple of stinkers he is right back on form with Straight (Michael Joseph, £12.95).
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