Thanks to such developments as Idi Amin and the Arab occupation of Britain, Waugh's views seem much less rabidly reactionary now, and in fact are being embraced by the liberals whom he once attacked. Moreover, his journalism is never dull-unlike his diaries, which he did not choose to publish-and the writing is a continual delight. For marksmanship, and elegance as well as economy of language, no one currently reviewing books even approaches the standard of the best in this too slender volume.

The title comes from Matthew Arnold - 'to introduce a little order into this chaos' - and it is meant to chime neatly with the title of Waugh's volume of autobiography, A Little Learning. Waugh disclaimed scholarship and even termed himself 'ill-educated'. He was an unsystematic reader and he compensated for areas of unabashed ignorance with eccentric advocacies...

The selection of brief essays on fellow authors does not seem to argue a wide range of tastes, but we have to remember that this is journalism and not a systematized literary conspectus. Still - Saki, Belloc, Wodehouse, Galsworthy (whose style, strangely, he has no bad word for) are evidently the writers Waugh wanted to write about. And Max Beerbohm, of course. His condemnation of James Joyce's later experiments - on the grounds of their lack of 'lucidity' - is a lucid enough signal of an unworthy narrowness.