BOOKS / Recommended

One Art: Selected Letters of Elizabeth Bishop ed. Robert Giroux, Chatto. A moving selection of letters by one of America's finest poets. Review by Jamie McCendrick, 30 April.

The Bridge over the Drina by Ivo Andric, Harvill, tr. Lovett F Edwards, Harvill pounds 8.99. A genuine modern classic: four centuries in the life of a bridge near Sarajevo. Review by Hugo Barnacle, 16 April.

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, Allen Lane, pounds 20. Learned and witty analysis of the miraculous human urge to talk and write. Review by Robert Winder, 15 April.

How late it was, how late by James Kelman, Secker, pounds 14.99. Scintillating novel detailing a hapless search for dignity. Review by Janette Turner Hospital, 2 March.

Innocents in Africa by Drury Piper, Granta, pounds 15.99. A tragic but warm evocation of racial bitterness in a memoir of South African childhood in the 1930s. Review by Doris Lessing, 7 May.