The long title story is about a man whose life, in a sense, is a book. There are shelves in every room, packed with titles which Ambrose Ribbon has checked pedantically for mistakes of grammar & fact. Life for Ribbon, without his mother now, is lonely & obsessive. He still keeps her dressing table exactly as she had left it, the wardrobe door always so that her clothes can be seen inside, & her pink silk nightdress on the bed. There is one book too that he associates particularly with her
- volume VIII of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Piranha to Scurfy. It marked a very significant moment in their relationship. In the other stories, Ruth Rendell deals with a variety of themes, some macabre, some vengeful, some mysterious, all precisely observed. The second novella, High Mysterious Union, explores a strange, erotic universe in a dream-like corner of rural Engl&, & illustrates very atmospherically what range Ruth Rendell has as a writer. ' If the crime short story is an endangered species, Ruth Rendell is one of the few courageous environmentalists fighting for its survival. She presents irrefutable evidence that the genre deserves not merely to survive but to flourish.' The Times
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Pirates of Barbary is an extraordinary record of the European renegades & Islamic sea-rovers who terrorised the Mediterranean ...

Robert Mapplethorpe's reputation rests largely on a body of black & white sexual imagery, yet he was one of the most elegant still-life photographers. His flower studies, to which he sometimes referred to as his ' New York flowers' are slightly poisonous & very sexual. This will be the most decorative of all the Mapplethorpe books. ...

Personal rivalry is the very stuff of politics. The causes & controversies, the parties & the technology have changed, but political conflict is still dramatised by the competition of ambitious individuals for the highest offices. Over the past two hundred years, the size of the electorate has grown enormously & the means of reaching it transformed out of all recognition; the chamber of the House of Commons has been usurped as the forum for national debate first by public meetings, press & television & now by the Internet. But human nature does not change. The lure of power still attracts men, & now women, keen to cross swords & bandy arguments, scheme & manoeuvre for advancement, clothing ambition in a cloak of high principle & public service. In almost every period, outstanding champions arise to embody the dominating movements & ideas of the time, defining themselves against each other & shaping the political argument of the day in their own image. Peace or war; protection or free trade; capitalism or socialism -- in every case ideology is inextricably entwined with personality.

John Campbell

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Benjamin Disraeli & William Gladstone. Edward Heath & Margaret Thatcher. Gordon Brown & Tony Blair. Personal rivalry is the very stuff of politics. The causes & controversies, the parties & technology may have changed over time but political conflict is still dramatised by the competition of ambitious individuals for the highest offices. Over the past two hundred years the size of the electorate has grown enormously & the means of reaching it transformed out of all recognition but human nature itself hasn ...