Whether celebrating Hogarth or savaging Hollywood, mocking modern manners or inviting readers to 'come inside' the Catholic Church, Evelyn Waugh was incapable of writing a dull sentence. Although he loved to play up to his image as an arch-reactionary, his defence of traditional English architecture and his contempt for party politics, modish Marxism and American-style religion, contain as much good sense as bad temper. In this wonderful selection, he explores his Oxford youth, his unexpected conversion, his literary enthusiasms (from P. G. Wodehouse to Graham Greene) - and the perils of basing fictional characters on real people. Most journalism is instantly disposable; decades later, Waugh's retains its capacity to delight, to surprise and to shock.