7 DECEMBER 1985, Page 36

Harold Acton

I preferred Family and Friends, by Anita Brookner, to the prize-winning Hotel du Lac. Denis Mack Smith's Cavour is masterly and original and The Letters of Edwin Lutyens to his Wife, Lady Emily, edited by Clayre Percy and Jane Ridley, is of absorbing interest not • only to architects, for whom this brilliantly edited book is, or should be, of outstanding importance.