Patrick Leigh Fermor
Mine, in order of reading, start with Robin Lane Fox's Pagans and Christians (Viking, 07.95); it casts a blaze of light on the shadowy tract of history when the Roman Empire......
Dervla Murphy
Behind the Wall: A Journey through China by Colin Thubron (Heinemann, £10.95). For thousands of readers it no longer matters where or what Colin Thubron is writing about: they......
John Grigg
The 17th century in England, beginning with Shakespeare, ending with Newton, and including a momentous constitutional struggle, was also the age in which the English language......
Patrick Skene Catling
A magnificent book came my way this year, The Queen of Heaven (Macdonald Orbis, £30), Bruce Bernard's anthology of paintings of the Virgin Mary from the 12th century to the......
John Jolliffe
For me the most rewarding book of the year is The Polish Way by Adam Zamoyski (John Murray, £17.95). It surveys 1,000 years of Polish history and the Polish character, and there......
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