Marchbanks' Almanack, recorded once more by Samuel Marchbanks' devoted amanuensis, Robertson Davies, is just as funny, just as witty and just as wise as the Diary and the Table Talk were before.

Some readers may find their gorge rising at the names of Marchbanks' correspondents, others will find the plan of the book (an almanack filled out with health hints, meditations and so on) a little forced. But no reader can really argue with the spaciousness of mind, the wide range of human contact and the richness of general reading which distinguish this book. What other writer would on one page talk about the oiling of aspidistra leaves, the film Ivanhoe and the inscription on Strindberg's tomb?…

There is the delicious musing about a garter-belt found by Marchbanks as he shovels a load of sand out of his driveway: "Who, I wondered, could have discarded her garter-belt in...