Books of the year (sadly, not mine)

The TLS always produces the best selection of Books of the Year. No one produces more erudite and cosmopolitan choices. Inspired, here is a selection of my favourites from their list, this year.

*  'The combination of classical learning, lavish book production and a hint of scholarly controversy makes Il papiro di Artemidoro (LED: Eidizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto, edited by Claudio Gallazzi, Barbel Kramer and Salvatore Settis, one of the most important books of the century so far.' (Mary Beard).

* '... we need to remember that it is an indulgence to blame civilization for everything that is not civilized. Pascal Bruckner reminds us of that truth in his La Tyrannie de la penitence, which i read again this year, making notes between my notes. His central message is that while the whole world, including the West, dealt in slaves, only the West came up with the idea of setting them free.' (Clive James)

* 'I have been reading the ancient Chinese military classics...' (Edward Luttwak)

* 'The Broken Word (Cape), Adam Foulda's brilliant long poem about the Mau-Mau, was snippily reviewed by Stephen Knight in the TLS by Stephen Knight. Knight was more fulsome to Michael Hofmann, writing favourably about his Selected Poems twice, main course here in the TLS, generous starter in the Independent on Sunday. A delicious double helping? Or thrift, Horatio? The cannnibalism of Hofmann's Acrimony (Faber) ...still famishes the craving.' (Craig Raine)

* 'The Ingeborg Bachmann-Paul Celan correspondence, Herzzeit (Suhrkamp) is almost unbearable in its private intensities... But little, indeed, since Keats's letters are of comparative truthfulness.' (George Steiner)