Preface
I owe my hitherto brief spell as a Telegraph book reviewer to my brilliant young friend Iona McLaren, who unfortunately for me has now moved away from the books pages and on to writing outstanding obituaries in the same newspaper. I suppose our paths may yet cross again in her current role. I wrote this article while on a solitary cure at the notorious FX Mayr clinic on the Wörthersee near Klagenfurt in Austria. The grimness of the experience – 400 calories a day for 12 days – may have contributed to the sourness of the review, but on reflection I doubt it.