William Trevor

Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man by Claire Tomalin (Penguin, £8.99). This is a classic biography, gracefully written, driven by a perception that never falters. The contradictions and lingering mysteries in Hardy’s life, both as a man and a novelist, are investigated fruitfully but gently, without gratuitous or prurient curiosity. Speculation is offered with well-mannered diffidence when there is doubt; with the certainty of exemplary research when there isn’t. A worthy addition to the best of Hardy’s novels, A Time-Torn Man often reads like a particularly good novel itself.

Equally a treat is Eleven Houses by Christopher Fitz-Simon (Penguin Ireland, £18.99), a memoir of a confused childhood in ‘Ireland, North and South, mainly during the 1940s’. The many moves from house to house were brought about by the war and the fact that the paterfamilias was an army officer. Far from well-to-do, the family was both Catholic and Protestant, their Ireland a place one wishes hadn’t gone away. There’s pleasure, and quiet charm, on every page.

Caroline Moorehead

Blackwell Bookshop

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