It must be winter (and raining) if I’m reading memoir. Last year’s great January escape was Keith Richard’s Life and, for a revelry of perfect contrast, the Duchess of Devonshire’s Wait for Me! This year, I spent the dwindling of 2011 reading Debo’s newest book -- All in One Basket , the compilation of two earlier collections of her essays, written over half a century. Though she can make a gardening book sound enticing to a brown thumb, the Duchess proclaims herself to be not much of a reader. One of her fondest anecdotes of her father is his “review” of Jack London’s White Fang . He read it through and declared himself done with books. So perfect was Fang, in his estimation, that any other book would most certainly fall short. The Duchess herself famously struggled in a column (revived for readers as part of All in One Basket ) to come up with 10 books of recommended reading on Trans Siberian railway adventure. Were her father still of this earth, no doubt he would glad...
Book reviews by the author of "Mimi Power and the I-don't-know-what", "Magnifico" and more.