That Was Satire That WasOld London BridgeHow To Lose Friends And Alienate PeoplePublic PlacesInterviews With American Artists

That Was Satire That Was by Humphrey Carpenter (Phoenix, £12.99, 378pp)

That Was Satire That Was by Humphrey Carpenter (Phoenix, £12.99, 378pp)

The Sixties satire boom is well-ploughed terrain, but Carpenter tells the interlinked stories of Beyond the Fringe, TW3 and Private Eye with his customary energy and readability. We learn that during Alan Bennett's brief spell as a don, he kept his clock set fast so tutorials would finish early, that Peter Cook's model for EL Wisty was an unhinged waiter at Radley public school, and that Barbara Windsor had an unlikely crush on Richard Ingrams during an ill-fated attempt to establish a satire club in Ilford.

Carpenter reminds us of the astonishing roster of writing talent harnessed for That Was The Week That Was (its title borrowed from the ad slogan "That's Shell That Was"): Potter, Tinniswood, Shaffer (P), Waterhouse, Nobbs ... Many of their gags remain amusing and edgy, such as this exchange between two judges: "What do you give these homosexual johnnies?" "Half a crown and an apple, generally." It seems remarkable today that the BBC allowed the programme to be "open-ended", but the famous Kennedy "tribute" show sounds terrible old tripe.

Carpenter makes a minor error when he writes that "Edward Heath was not worthy of a Private Eye diary". In fact, there was an excellent replacement for Mrs Wilson's Diary in the form of a series of memos from "Heathco", with a bad-tempered MD barking endless warnings about the misuse of the coffee machine etc. By 1966, the satire boom had fizzled out. Sir Jonathan Miller's scathing verdict: "It all got taken up by fucking David Frost, who took it seriously."

Old London Bridge by Patricia Pierce (Review, £7.99, 344pp)

By focusing on this cluttered pontine nexus, Pierce throws a penetrating light on the doings of Londoners both famous and commonplace over 600 years. She reveals that the bridge had sinister aspects both above and below. The narrow arches of the old bridge made it deadly to pass through. Even Princess Elizabeth's barge got stuck when Queen Mary ordered her to the Tower. Over the bridge, 30 or more heads were displayed, though these weren't always as gruesome as you might expect. According to one report, the head of a victim of Henry VIII "grew fresher and fresher, so that in his life time he never looked so well".

How To Lose Friends And Alienate People by Toby Young (Abacus, £6.99, 342pp)

The memoir by an English journalist who fails to hack it in New York is becoming a literary genre. After Alexander Chancellor's fine Some Times in America, about his unhappy spell at The New Yorker, comes this equally excellent account of an even bumpier ride at Vanity Fair. "Everything you touch turns to shit," opines the editor Graydon Carter, who in turn is expertly skewered by Young. However, our hero's target is mainly himself. Ruthlessly self-revealing, this is an engaging and literate version of the picaresque. Don't be put off by Young's combination of naked ambition and ineptness. This book is just brilliant.

Public Places by Sian Phillips (Sceptre, £7.99, 436pp)

Contrary to what most publishers believe, a book on the disintegrating marriage of two top-flight actors is not of universal interest. Reading this is like watching slo-mo footage of a car crash. Still, if you are drawn to such stuff, you won't do much better than Phillips' wry account of her bust-up with Peter O'Toole. Watching him drop £10,000 gambling or bingeing with journalists can't have been much fun, but Phillips doesn't sound the soul of selflessness: "I had no qualms about appearing strident, tiresome, unattractive." Even reading PG Wodehouse aloud to each other couldn't keep them together. Poor things.

Interviews With American Artists by David Sylvester (Pimlico, £12.50, 387pp)

Mostly unpublished, these discussions date, in the main, from the high watermark of American art in the Sixties. This most sympathetic and pensive of critics draws revelations from such giants as de Kooning ("I have no sense of colour") and Oldenberg ("I'm drawn to something that is like me, more soft and flabby"), though he fails to engage with Jasper Johns. When Sylvester asks why he painted certain letters, Johns can't see what he's on about: "I mean I pick it, and I pick what I want and that's what I pick." Sylvester has an easier time with his hero Jeff Koons: "I like, very much, mixing food and hair and sexuality together."