Harrymania continues

Point of discord: why are Rowling’s books listed separately while Enid Blyton’s Famous Five have been clubbed together? Point of clarification: R.L. Stevenson, Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling are part of the top 20 too.

Red Sox and the Korean War

David Halberstam is that rare creature, indulging his passion for foreign policy and sport by churning out brilliant books on both subjects. The author of The Best and the Brightest, which some consider the best book on America’s Vietnam experience, and Playing for Keeps, which many say is the best book you’ll find on basketball, has now won himself a three-book deal.

First on the cards is The Teammates, on Boston Red Sox stars Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky. That’s scheduled for a mid-2003 release. Then will come a book on the Korean War. Third, a work on the ’58 championship tie between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts.

Oh no, not bridget

Oh dear, what’s politics doing in Bridget Jones’s calorie obsessed world! It all began last week with Conservative politician David Willetts claiming that Bridget, Helen Fielding’s iconic creation, was a Tory at heart because she was desperate to find her husband. It’s about family values, you see.

Fielding lost no time in striking back, saying Jones would never vote Tory. “Bloody cheek!” she wrote in a London paper. “Mr Willetts has got the whole thing completely back to front.” And to clarify matters further, she added, “Bridget is not just on a desperate quest to settle down… Besides — if everyone who had a partner or husband voted Tory, they’d have won their last election, wouldn’t they?”

Well, that’s at least something to gladden Tony Blair’s heart, as he contemplates increasing dissent in his Labour Party over his plans for Iraq.