11 SEPTEMBER 1976, page 26

How It Was

Ronald Hingley The File on The Tsar Anthony Summers and Tom Mangold (Gollancz £5.50) As every historian or intelligent reader of history knows, there is nothing more elusive......

Wide-eyed

Peter Ackroyd The Devil Finds Work James Baldwin (Michael Joseph £3.95) At its worst the American cinema is an elaborate and colourful repository of social codes and beliefs,......

The Bottom Shelf

Richard Shone The Restless Years: Diaries 1955-63 Cecil Beaton (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £4.95) It is hard to discover in what spirit Cecil Beaton writes his diaries beyond the......