Journals: 1990-1992, by Anthony Powell (Heinemann, £12.99 in UK)

Writing is inevitably an egocentric art, craft, trade. Anthony Powell, whose admirers sometimes call him the Grand Old Man of English letters, has always been fondly self-regarding, one of the less vigorously imaginative of novelists. His chef d'oeuvre, the twelve-novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time, is a thinly disguised autobiographical romana-clef that gives the impression of a slow minuet performed solo in front of a looking glass. Typical of the diaries of many an aged writer with a yearning eye on posterity, Powell's collected daily jottings were obviously written for publication. There are no intimate revelations of his late eighties in confinement at home in Somerset, but there is an abundance of entries about the choice food and wine on his table, his catholic reading, gossip about literary rivals he has outlived and some he hasn't, and unconvincing complaints about being pestered by the media. There is an affectionate introduction by his wife, Violet.