Books Do Furnish A Room - Anthony Powell

Books Do Furnish A Room has long been a favourite title of mine, ever since spotting it on my mum's bookshelf many years ago. In fact, I can't think of a better one except perhaps Far From The Madding Crowd.

A Dance to the Music of Time is also pretty fine, and utterly appropriate to the series that constantly alludes to other artistic forms. The dance corresponds to the grouping and regrouping of the same large group of characters, as in a formal ball, and the music refers to the formal motifs of repetition, variation and shifts in tone. It's all masterfully accomplished.

Plot-wise, the war is over and the literary life reasserts itselfs, now tangled up with politics in the person of the terrible Widmerpools.