From Robert McCrum to Adrian Tinniswood: new books reviewed in short

Taking the Lead is written by the Guardian columnist John Crace , who adopted Herbie as a puppy to live in his south-west London residence.

Crace has a tattoo of Herbie on his left arm and later got companion inkage of a stick on his right which soon got infected and hospitalised him.

Tinniswood is n’t a historian with a revolutionary argument to make.

But he is one with a terrific eye for detail and anecdote, all the better to show the country house in its most extreme age of pomp, profligacy and exuberance.

The Prince of Wales ’s party took out over 2,000 pheasants.