Mark Archer
In Pagan Virtue.• An Essay in Ethics (OUP, £12.50) John Casey contrasts the self- abnegation at the heart of the Christian ethic with the assertive tradition of the classical virtues and makes us aware of the confused moral tradition we inherit. Written with guile and charm, Pagan Virtue leaves one pondering life, luck and the cosmos for several weeks afterwards. In The Desire of My Eyes: A Life of John Ruskin (Harper Collins, £20), Wolfgang Kemp produces an immensely readable biography which fails to answer one question: how can someone so pig- headedly wrong about the Renaissance still be a genius? Among the overrated, who remembers American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (Picador, £6.99)? `Gazza eats ref!': has Ellis already been signed up by The Sunday Sport?
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