The book which changed the way military history is written by focussing on what the individual soldier experienced, saw, smelt and achieved in conflict. John Keegan examined three battles?Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme?and the lessons he draws from them are timeless, as is his insistence that books which merely describe strategy and generalship miss the real meaning of warfare because they ignore the travails of the men doing the actual fighting. A sympathetic, highly intelligent and classic work.

Gabriel Fauré was a 19th Century French composer, church organist and music teacher who wrote extraordinarily delicate songs and choral works. I have a huge liking for liturgical music and if I were only allowed one CD for the rest of my life then it would probably be Mozart's Requiem, but Fauré's would run that masterpiece very close. His music is simply beautiful, distinguished by strong melody and haunting modulations. John Rutter's recording also includes the ethereal Mater, Maria gratiae, two minutes and forty seven seconds of paradise.

This film was a romp, but what a romp! Set in Shakespeare's London it tells of a love story which unfolds as the first production of Romeo and Juliet is rehearsed and staged. Tom Stoppard contributed to the screenplay which explains much of the magical dialog that was delivered by a stellar cast. Joseph Fiennes played the young Shakespeare, and the film also features Geoffrey Rush, Simon Callow and Gwyneth Paltrow who, as Viola de Lesseps, was quite brilliant. Dame Judi Dench had a cameo appearance as Elizabeth I, a part which was measured in mere minutes on screen, but which was sufficient to win her an Oscar for best actress. A marvellous film, worth seeing over and over.

This unfolding life is proving to be a masterpiece of biography. You do not need to be interested in the monster who was Lyndon Johnson to be fascinated by these books to which Robert Caro is dedicating a lifetime's work. So far there have been three volumes: The Path to Power, Means of Ascent, and Master of the Senate. Whether Robert Caro is describing the electrification of the Texas hill country or, as in the second volume, providing a primer on how to steal an election, he is never less than brilliant, readable and thorough. This is not just one of the greatest political biographies ever written, it will surely prove to be a landmark series about 20th Century America.

Not everyone's cup of tea, perhaps, but to me Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is pure champagne. Yet how to describe it? The series, above all, is funny, and yet has a grave seriousness that sneaks past the humour. There is enormous wisdom in Terry Pratchett's crazy creation and it is, trust me, crazed. The Discworld is carried on the shell of a giant tortoise, and is inhabited by, among other weird things, witches, trolls, golems, dwarves, vampires and werewolves. Terry Pratchett has conjured a world in which reality is suspended to teach us about, well, reality.