Several people have enquired why we carried no review of Stephen Fry’s autobiography, Moab is my Washpot (Hutchinson £16.99), in a magazine which boasts of its efforts to cover all the month’s worthwhile books at the beginning of the month they are due to appear. They will be puzzled to see no review even in this issue. The explanation is that although Moab is my Washpot was published on 2 October, it was heavily enough embargoed to keep it out of the November issue as well and has received endless attention since.

My opinion, recorded here, that it is a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable book, is a poor substitute for a full review, but in fact we lose little by neglecting books held back by publishers on the prospect of serialisation. Almost by definition, such books normally tend to be pretty good