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Monday 17 November 2008

Books Of The Year

A selection of the best and worst books of 2008, chosen by some of our regular reviewers

Bevis Hillier

For Alan Bennett fans, a rare treat is in store this season. His former Oxford college, Exeter, has produced a selection from the Junior Common Room (JCR) suggestion book of his 1950s days. (I am surprised to learn that the shy, self-deprecating Bennett became president of the JCR — a post normally held by thrusting public-school rugger blues.)

What puts this volume way above the usual ‘Sir – Could somebody please give the JCR fender a lick of Brasso?’ are not only the often priceless comments of Bennett (Ned Sherrin and Russell Harty were there too), but the incredibly accomplished drawings of Bennett and others by John Morley, a future director of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, and of Gothic architecture (Charles Addams style) by Brian Brindley, who became a priest.

Bennett contributes a nostalgic foreword. Near the end of the book are pages of interest to those who relish filthy limericks. (Try ‘There was a young bird of St Hilda’s’). Ask for Exeter College, Oxford JCR Suggestion Book, edited by J.G. Spiers and J.P. Leighfield (Exeter College, £15).

Canon Professor Nicholas Orme, DD, D.Litt, D.Phil, FSA might not sound the obvious person to write a sparkling jeu d’esprit, but that is just what he has done in The Cathedral Cat (Impress Books, £9.99). That is the title story of this little book of historically-based tales, each with some link with Exeter Cathedral. (Until recently, Orme was Professor of History at Exeter university.)

Alan Coren once asked the manager of Hatchard’s bookshop what subjects sold best. He was told: ‘Cats, golf and Nazis’. So Coren wrote Golfing for Cats, with a giant swastika on the jacket. Orme scores only one out of the three — but what a one! Cat-lovers will be lured into the book by the feline illuminated initial on the cover, and they will not be disappointed. But those less enchanted by cats — was it Churchill or Lord Emsworth who said, ‘Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you, pigs treat you as an equal’? — will also find plenty to enjoy. I liked best the story of the Bohun family who ‘claimed to be descended from a family of swans’. Orme puts the grin into Lohengrin (and the cat into Cathedral, of course).

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