Sometimes you finish a book, having been careful to read it thoroughly, and immediately know you could start again and find something fresh on every page. So it is with Simon Sebag Montefiore's "Jerusalem". Immense research, judicious wit, thought-provoking: a hugely enjoyable history. In some ways partial, in others trying a little too hard to lean to the other side, but in every way worth reading. I saw a middle-eastern businessman reading a copy on the Tube, we chanced to walk together to the escalator, and I said 'it's a good book'. 'A tremendous book', he replied. I wish I knew who he was.
