Sorry to read of the death of Owen Chadwick, who wrote one of my favourite books, 'Victorian Miniature' - a study of the relationship between the squire and the parson in the Norfolk village of Ketteringham, between 1838 and 1869.  Doesn't sound like a page turner, does it, but it did it for me. A little classic.

I need hardly add that it was brought to my attention by my father, who served with Chadwick on the board of the National Portrait Gallery.  Another book by Chadwick I enjoyed a lot was 'Britain and the Vatican in the Second World War', which was actually chiefly about a chap called D'Arcy Godolphin Osborne, who was the British envoy to the Vatican during the war. He was a kind of Scarlet Pimpernel.  A movie was made of his exploits, starring Gregory Peck.