Bargain of the week: A mug's eyeful

The Letters of Kingsley Amis
Kingsley Amis, The Works, Victoria Centre, £2.99
It's generally assumed that hardbacks are always worth more than paperbacks; and that the bigger the hardback, the more it's worth. Not so. This tomb-size collection of mischief from one of post-war Britain's most influential novelists is still available as a paperback. It costs £15, for which you get something that with difficulty can be read on a bus. This hardback is far too unwieldy an item for trips out of home, and has a correspondingly lower second-hand value. But it can offer a great many fun evenings in, and it doesn't half look nice on the shelf…