Christopher Pearson | December 22, 2007

MIDDLE age is a much more rewarding business than I was led to expect.

Not least of its pleasures are the friendships that develop with bright young adults you first tentatively encountered 20 years ago at the font, as a godfather, and the honorary nieces and nephews whose parents have been numbered among your closer friends since student days.

A couple of my favourites are undergraduates and at this time of year they're wont to ask: what should we read, watch and listen to over the summer holidays? This tends to bring on an extended session of all-time favourites and Desert Island Discs, a diverting game that the extended family can play and a good way of sorting out suitable Christmas presents. There are a few unwritten rules. It's expected the young will make a reasonable effort to take on some of what's on the list and be ready to talk about what they've enjoyed. In turn, their elders will bear in mind the vicissitudes of their own misspent youth and try not to set impossible targets.

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Vladimir Nabokov was an aristocratic Russian emigre writer who wrote as perfectly in English as he did in his native tongue or indeed in French. He's an eminent novelist but it's often said that his most enchanting and accessible book is his memoir, Speak, Memory. He grew up in a privileged household in pre-revolutionary times. His uncle's death left him briefly extremely rich, but it's the passing of a highly civilised world and the triumph of barbarism, rather than the fortune, that he regrets. Friends old enough to remember Moscow and St Petersburg before World War I have assured me there's no better account of the era in English.

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