Building: Letters, 1960–1975, by Isaiah Berlin

This is the third volume of Isaiah Berlin letters; one more to go. Discerning critics have showered the first two with praise, and there is no absence of the laudable here. The plums are unforgettable, especially the brief character studies of Maurice Bowra, Enid Starkie, Randolph Churchill, Golda Meir and Stravinsky, should anyone want to know who and what these people were. Of course, Isaiah himself is the centre of attention, and a growing number of people have never heard of him.

Those who met him in this period met an intellectual superstar, a celebrity courted by princes, politicians and plutocrats, thirsting for his company and his approval. Not so many philosophers — but, my! he was a big orange. Many of those taught by him were changed for life.

He opened up the ways to wisdom by bestowing both glamour and correct pronunciation on the Russian intelligentsia under the tsars; by quizzing the German philosophers from Heine’s point of view rather than the Marxist; and by presenting the Enlightenment as a brilliant nursery where infant prodigies played with dangerous toys.