Diaries have been kept on diets, dogs, driving, droving, digging…but this has got to be one of my favourites: BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS! The carefully crafted entries read like a bibliographic reference worthy of any dictionary of literature. The diarist who recorded his reading material between 1942 and 2005 was meticulous and mercurial : from Thatcher to the Water Babies, Disraeli to Somerset Maugham, there is a definite favouring of the classics but an occasional ‘pulp fiction’ raises its grubby little face to the diarist’s smile and praise.