CEASELESS TURMOIL: DIARIES, 1988-1992; ED. BY MICHAEL BLOCH

the long version

"In this eleventh volume of his diaries, James Lees-Milne forges resolutely into his eighties, his interest in life undiminished and his observations as sharp as ever. He discusses architecture with the Prince of Wales and royal mistresses with Princess Michael of Kent. As the grand old man of country house conservation, he becomes a media celebrity, but he declines a CBE and refuses to be photographed by Lord Snowdon. He reads in The Times of the death of the boy who seduced him at Eton, and publishes a novel about a German count who seduces first an English schoolboy, then the boy's mother .... These diaries chronicle a way of life and a view of the world that are rapidly vanishing."