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......

Harriet Waugh

Novels this year have been curiously unin- spired. Usually it is a question of juggling four or five around in your head. This year only two novels strongly awakened my......

Patrick Skene Catling

In a year of exceptionally awful disasters, of which I have experienced my share, it was very pleasant to read The Bodley Head G. K. Chesterton, selected and with an......

Richard Cobb

The book I have most enjoyed reading this year is La Forme d'une Ville (Paris, Jose Corti, 1985) by the West of France novelist Julien Gracq (Jacques Poirier), now aged 75. It......

Taki

Best books: Napoleon, 1812 by Nigel Nicolson. Having always read about the great Corsican in books written by Frenchmen, I finally decided to read something from across the......

Peter Levi

To choose the most overrated book of the year is a mouth-watering exercise that leaves a taste of ashes; these bad, silly books are not interesting enough to write about. To......