There are several occupational hazards for book reviewers, chief among them being the Curse of the Jaded Palate - that sinking feeling when you start reading a new book and begin to suspect that you've seen it all before.

Rereading, we find a new book.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!

These days it seems that every big, new, heavily promoted children's book is rather like the ghost of poor old Jacob Marley. Each one comes trailing a long, clanking chain of references - in the form of overexcited press releases and slightly hysterical jacket blurbs - to bestsellers of a supposedly similar nature.

Each new book is a tremendous challenge.

I'm writing a new book right now that is like an erotica manifesto.