John Osborne
1987: Move house. Amidst the dust of demolition and day-long Radio One, Judith and Martin Miller's Period Details: A Source for House Restoration (Mitchell Beazley, £14.95) has been an oasis of informed calm, a reassurance to the lay- man that the Phoenix can rise again. I hardly ever read plays, let alone film- scripts, but Charles Wood's Tumbledown (Penguin, £2.95) is worth anyone's time. The source of unseemly squabbles between the BBC and the Army, engineered by the Daily Mail and someone called Ian Cur- teis, it is the onslaught of a seasoned veteran whose work is invariably brilliant and underrated. The best novel I got to read was Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton (Hamish Hamilton, £10.95). A big step forward despite the cavils of prize-giving pundits.
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