Anthony Storr
Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust (Chatto & Windus). Terrance Kilmartin's revision of Scott-Moncrieff's famous translation makes one return to, and enriches one's appreciation of, the 20th-century's greatest novelist. His access to the Pleiade edition of 1954 adds a great deal that was not available to the earlier translator.
Jean Strouse's biography of Alice James (Cape) is a tour-de-force. She demonstrates convincingly the crushing force of Victorian convention upon a woman whose talents might otherwise have flowered; and her delineation of the James family is wonderfully illuminating.
C. P. Snow's essay on the scientists who have changed our world, The Physicists (Macmillan) is, alas, posthumous. His grasp of human character, and his unfailing insight into the global significance of scientific advance make this compulsive reading.
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