Michele Hewitson: Recommended holiday reads

The books editor is nagging me to give her back her copy of The Insider, Piers Morgan's diaries. I might. Sometime. Actually, I'm regretting having not saved this for holiday reading because it's such a romp it'd be perfect for taking long, lazy dips — alternated with sips of gin and tonic.

It's twaddle really, but terrific on gossip and some of it is making me laugh aloud. Morgan, former editor of News of the World and then the Daily Mirror, is a prat with a schoolboy sense of humour. This is more than partly mitigated by the fact he admits it. The Mirror's front page, when Germany was to play England in the Euro 96 Championship read: "ACHTUNG! SURRENDER. For You Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over".

His plans to have a Spitfire dive-bombing the Germans at training and to have a tank invade the Berlin offices of Germany's biggest tabloid, Das Bild, had to be canned when "every paper led on my cretinousness today." Brilliant. I think I'll buy my own copy. On a more serious, and possibly more interesting note (nah, not really), is Morgan's relationship with the Blairs. The access, and the personal nature of the shifting relationship, is fascinating.

I'll re-read The Apologist by Jay Rayner, the Observer's restaurant critic, another quite silly book — fiction this time. It's about a restaurant critic whose review may or may not have caused a leading chef who can't cook to kill himself in a bread oven. Marc Basset, the critic, goes about apologising and is given a job with the UN as chief apologist. A terrifically silly satire.

Will I re-read The Chronicles of Narnia? I nagged the books editor to give me a new collection, which is out, of course, because of the movie. Despite the fact there's a movie image on the cover, I think I might. If only because reading a book about a place where it's always winter but never Christmas is quite appealing at Christmas. And so as to ignore all the hoo-ha about how blatantly the Narnia books are books about Christianity. Who cares?

On the topic of kids' books for sad grown ups, I'm waiting for a little friend of mine to get old enough for the Moomintroll books of Tove Jansson so she can be introduced to the gentle, eccentric world of the Moomins. Perhaps strange, round, albino creatures which look a bit like hippos won't cut it against playing the dull Harry Potter books. I may have to read them again to find out.

That's a bit sad, isn't it? Reading kids' books at Christmas time? Only as sad as getting the cat a Christmas present. I can recommend Milton by Hayde Ardalan which is about a cat who has a bigger ego than Piers Morgan. Says Milton, "I am an exceptional cat." Highly recommended for cats of all ages.


* Michele Hewitson is a Herald feature writer