The Golden Bough, by James Frazer (Penguin, £11 in UK)

Frazer's monumental work, the labour of a lifetime of intensive scholarship and practical research, appeared originally in 12 volumes, but this is the abridged version of 1922, which is the one generally read today. To state thee obvious and the well known, it has had an enormous influence, roughly comparable with Freud; Frazer's fir reaching studies of primitive religions, myth, ritual killing of kings. vegetation cults, the beliefs which underlay totems and taboos and folk customs, made a lasting impact on Western thought. Writers, of course, have found him endlessly suggestive and stimulating, including Eliot, Lawrence. Robert Graves, etc.