BOOK REVIEW / Brick pix: Brickwork - Andrew Plumridge and Wim Meulenkamp: Studio Vista, pounds 25

It's not only Carl Andre who is bats about bricks, but it is a bit like owning up to a passion for Morris dancing. However, if you thrill to the perfect proportions even of homely London Stocks, let alone medieval herringbone nogging, honeycomb barns and crinkle-crankle walls, Romanesque basilicas, Gaudi's flights of whimsy, Raymond Hood's American Radiator Building, the Pantheon in Rome or St Basil's in Moscow, then Brickwork, by Andrew Plumridge and Wim Meulenkamp (Studio Vista pounds 25), is the book for you. Above, the ziggurat at Ur: the Mesopotamians invented the fired brick in about 2500 BC. Bless 'em.

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