Paul Johnson
Of the books I was sent for review in 1985, none struck me as outstanding, though I was impressed by the material presented in Sanford J. Ungar's Africa: People and Politics in an Emerging Continent. It is published by Simon & Schuster in New York ($19.95) and should be made avail- able here. The most important book of 1985, in my opinion, was the new and greatly enlarged edition of Raul Hilberg's magisterial work, The Destruction of the European Jews (3 vols, Holmes & Meier, New York and London), which disentang- les all the various threads of the most atrocious crime in history, and shows exactly how it came to happen. There are many lessons to be learned from this analysis and no historian should excuse himself from reading it. Of the year's bargains, the best were Bell & Hyman's shorter version of their definitive edition of Samuel Pepys's Diary and Margaret Drab- ble's new edition of the Oxford Compan- ion to English Literature, both good value at £20 and £15 respectively. The book which moved me most was the letters and diaries of Barbara Pym, who is now at last being recognised as a major novelist, and whose sweet-and-sad life is here vividly illuminated. The book I enjoyed the most, and recommend strongly for Christmas presents, is the British Museum's new collection of Turner Watercolours of Venice (£15 until 1 January). Having just been painting in Venice, I found these hundred-odd beautifully printed full- colour plates in turn inspiring, despair- inducing and wonderfully educative.
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