Paperback: Vanished Years by Rupert Everett (Abacus, £8.99)

From the start of this book, in which Rupert Everett finds himself sitting on a bench in a Jamaican park, looking at a couple of ageing ladies, we can see that he is a first-rate writer — a writer who has somehow strayed into the world of celebrity and is reporting back to us.

This is not the usual celebrity book. It’s like the work of a top memoirist, with misery to spare, who happens to be a celebrity.

There’s a superb sequence on how American TV works, stuff about Everett’s schooldays, and a moving passage about the death of his father.

He tells the stories of Natasha Richardson’s death, and her first wedding, with great skill and poise.