Resident Alien: The New York Diaries, by Quentin Crisp (Flamingo £7.99 in UK)

America was kind to Britain's battiest eccentric, and he achieved celebrity of a sort around the more benign edges of its gossip…

America was kind to Britain's battiest eccentric, and he achieved celebrity of a sort around the more benign edges of its gossip columns and chat shows. These "diaries" are actually the merry ramblings of a mind firmly attuned to the most frivolous wavelengths of existence, and will carry anyone of like mind - or who can persuade themselves that they are of like mind for an hour or two at a stretch - along with them in a mildly diverting fashion. Since The Naked Civil Servant first appeared Crisp has been out Crisped by a plethora of gay memoirs of the confessional variety and his style now seems unnecessarily coy at still his innate humanity keeps it effortlessly afloat well above the tedium level.

Arminta Wallace

Arminta Wallace

Arminta Wallace is a former Irish Times journalist