THREE SMALL,PERFECTLY FORMED GEMS BEING PUBLISHED NEXT WEEK

Here are three books for booklovers, all being published in the first week of October:

THE UNCOMMON READER

Alan Bennett Profile Books $30

Utterly delightful, witty, charming, subversive, playful, exquisite, and read in one joyous sitting.

The uncommon reader is of course, H.M.Queen Elizabeth 2, and this is Bennett's fantasy of her life after she discovers the pleaures of reading.

KATE'S KLASSICS

Kate Camp Penguin $29.95

Kate Camp is a Wellington poet, writer and broadcaster with an honours degree in English Literature and this thoughtful but entertaining book is based on her popular Saturday morning chats with Kim Hill on the classics. Here she picks out ten classics including Crime & Punishment, Jane Eyre, Moby Dick, War & Peace and Middlemarch. Intelligent and often irreverent, if there are some here you haven't read, buy this book and save yourself some time!

HOW TO READ A NOVEL - A Users Guide

John Sutherland Profile $28

Rather than how to read a novel Sutherland's book is really how to get the most out of reading a novel. This is the most serious of our three gems and it does take a bit of reading but when you have finished it you may well find the way you look at books in the future will be greatly changed. I especially found chapter four, Fiction- a four minute history, both interesting and useful.