What Am I Still Doing Here? By Roger Lewis

Part memoir, part diary, this book of snippets from the world's most idiosyncratic biographer is funny ("I'M THE CHEESE TART!" bellows a woman in a restaurant), poignant and, oh yes, opinionated.

The dead are robustly libelled while the living get off only slightly more lightly: "Brucie's a bully." A "manifesto" of poetry includes Agatha Christie's knowledge of poisons, Osbert Lancaster's cartoons and Ronald Searle's drawings. This reviewer appears on page 367 (while writing in praise of Lewis, R.).