Diaries [first edition]

Alan Clark's Diaries are the best account of the last quarter of a century of British politics. For the hundreds of thousands of readers who were enthralled by the first volume, "The Early Years" will be an event. The long-awaited second installment of one of the great political diaries of the twentieth century. Here Alan Clark covers his apprentice years from his selection as Tory candidate for Plymouth Sutton in 1972 through three elections, the arrival of Margaret Thatcher, the winter of discontent to the triumph of the Falklands. His other enthusiasms not least his family, his home and his love of fast cars are never far away. Of the original volume of "Diaries", "The Times", in a rare accolade in a leading article wrote that the best diarists, from Pepys and Boswell to Chips Channon and Harold Nicolson, have been the souls of indiscretion. But none so indiscreet as Mr Clark. If he is made the scapegoat for the Matrix Churchill affair, he may be written down politically as Baroness Thatchers little loose cannon. But literature and the great British game of gossip will judge him for his diary. For its Pooterish self-assessment, for Mr Toad's enthusiasm for new things, for Byrons cadishness, for its deadly candour, it is one of the great works in the genre.