She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called “petites madeleines”, which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had the effect, which love has, of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was me.. Bob Dylan has finished the first volume of his memoirs, covering the early Sixties in New York But UK publication will not be until January.

For those too hungry to wait, there’s a substantial appetiser in the form of Larry Sloman’s account of the 1975 Rolling Thunder Tour, which found Dylan touring with such old friends as Joan Baez and Allen Ginsberg On the Road with Bob Dylan is out from Helter Skelter. But Macmillan is sticking to its 7 January publication date for his new novel, Sons of Fortune. Agent Jonathan Lloyd (his other clients include Edwina Currie) has confirmed that editing – done both face-to-face and by post – is now complete. All that’s required are a few conference calls, if “poor Jeffrey can get to a phone”.

So much for the withdrawal of privileges.Alistair Cooke turns 94 next month and still broadcasts to 23 million, world-wide, with his Letter from America. The Letters have been collected in anthologies but, for the grand sweep, it’s necessary to go back to his America: companion to a landmark TV series which – 30 years on – is being republished. Cooke stated that there would be no book unless Knopf, his US publisher, was prepared to guarantee him $500,000 over 10 years There were nerves: Cooke accepted $400,000 over eight But it actually earned him a staggering $2m. It’s testimony to the quality of America that no changes have been made to Weidenfeld’s new edition.. When Fay Weldon was asked by the Italian jewellers Bulgari to write an “in-store” novel, there were squeals of disapproval from certain literary quarters.

Pocketing her few squillion lire (but sadly no freebie rocks), Weldon retorted that as she’d never been chosen for the Booker Prize, who was she to say no? The happy result is a novel not only untarnished by the hand of big business, but one of the author’s jollier creations to date. The Bulgari Connection, by Fay Weldon (Flamingo, £6.99, 220pp)
When Fay Weldon was asked by the Italian jewellers Bulgari to write an “in-store” novel, there were squeals of disapproval from certain literary quarters. The Bulgari Connection is classic Weldonia – a shrewd tale of jilted wives, powerful men and charlatan counsellors. The fact that a little jewellery is thrown in, mainly in the guise of sexual props, hardly alters its chemistry.