A poet grumpily fleeing from plagiarism, coincidence, misfortune and women. Read as far as the end of the Clockwork Testament; will save the Dark Lady for another time.

Second-handed from Holly. Timeshift theatre with perfect dialogue, on the vexed issues of entropy, free will, love and landscape gardening.

From Holly, again. Two Stoppard radio plays; the second one is rather weak, but the first is excellent – a set of time-jumping dialogues between three bickering conceptual artists.

Tatty old 50s edition picked up on holiday earlier in the year, and unread – dug out again now that it’s been unexpectedly rereleased with an afterword by Dickon Edwards, who seems to think that it’s good. And it is; a bit meandering and overblown, but some nice comments and humour.

Brilliant. Will review properly, later.

Bought and signed when we saw him at the weekend. Not actually a travelogue at all, but the usual mix of good poetry and slightly-overlong short stories about dogs; the actual bit about going to France to repeat his father’s work isn’t much more than has been read aloud at his shows.

Best line: “I troubleshoot the rubble-chute.”

One of Will Self’s favourites, apparently. Grumpy Parisian gets bored of people and goes off to live in a decadent museum. A bit annoyed by a note from the translator saying how she’s gone for simple language because “not everyone has a crossword-puzzle mentality”, but it’s looking okay so far.

The rise of societal self-delusion, upwards through the horror of the eighties. Veering a little strangely between weighty political comment and Dawkinsesque over-egging, but a good read.

Christmas present from Alice and Matt. Nicely armchair-browsable version of Bill Walsh’s grumpy style guide, which dropped off the web a few years ago. Nice that he bothers to clarify differences in American and British usage, and horrifying to see some of the things that are “common mistakes” in US journalism.

Very, very good book from Webb. Tight-focus brain analysis and armchair experiments to demonstrate them. The book I’d been hoping that other brain books would be, and they weren’t.