Anthony Blond
`This is what you English call justice', shouted Queen Victoria in defence of her favourite Indian servant Munshi, correctly accused of having flogged one of her brooches for six shillings to a shop in Balmoral. It is one of hundreds of intimate glimpses of the Queen in a life of her Scottish doctor, Ask Sir James, by Michaela Reid (Hodder, £14.95) which is a joy for buffs. Adam Zamoyski has written his country back into history in The Polish Way (John Murray, £17.95). A thousand years is a lot to bite off but he chews it succinctly, the essence being rape, rape for a millennium by the great powers. A Palate in Revolution, by Giles McDonagh (Robin Clark, £11.95) about the extraordinary gourmand, Grimod de la Reyuiere may be my favourite book of the decade. His enormous income evaporated at the Re- volution but he escaped with his neck because his hateful mother would not let him be baptised as a member of the nobility. Lovely history, scrumptious re- ceipts — a real bonne bouche of a book.
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