For anyone who has access to a Financial Times subscription, there is a long read in today’s paper on four recent books about museums, including I’m pleased to see, my own, not quite yet available (due March 25th.), which is complimented (I think it’s a compliment, but a very ambiguous one) for being written ‘with the crisp elegance found in Baedeker’s Guides, or even Edith Wharton’s writing on Italy’. Then, it is, equally legitimately, castigated for being ‘delightfully free of any critical ideas’. This is no doubt true. It is a celebration of art museums, not a condemnation of museums of archaeology, so I have not dealt with restitution, the hot topic of the moment, and of at least two of the other books.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Thar sounds rather unfair. I’d say you have many critical ideas, often unconventional. Perhaps the problem is that they are gently put and so not expressed with the vehemence that is customary nowadays
Dear Maurice, I’m not too fussed. I chose only museums I like and admire and probably err on the side of generosity, not critique. Charles
I’ve just finished a 750 page biography about Edith Wharton – written by Hermione Lee. Interesting, and I certainly now know a lot
more about her! And I followed up with ‘The Age of Innocence’. I haven’t read her writing on Italy yet – maybe that should be next. I know she spent a lot of time there with Bernard Bereson at I Tatti.
Dear Jane, Yes, I must revisit her writings, too, not knowingly having paid particular attention to them in the past. Charles