Gentle Regrets : Thoughts From a Life

These autobiographical essays are the nearest Roger Scruton has ever got to writing a full autobiography.

Written as always in beautiful and limpid prose, they show rare insight into the mind and personality of one of the most admired and yet often monstrously reviled intellectuals of our time.

In this new book, Roger Scruton presents a series of autobiographical essays - the nearest he has come yet to writing an autobiography.

Arranged thematically rather than chronologically, Scruton discusses and describes the people and issues that have mattered to him most.

At Cambridge, Scruton became part of the group of intellectuals under the influence of Maurice Cowling, the historian.

It would be a misnomer to describe them simply as 'right wing' but they are thought of as such.

The group included John Vincent, the historian, Edward Norman, the theologian and historian.

It was a group of people that influenced a new generation of thinkers including Charles Moore, former editor of The Daily Telegraph and the Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks.

As Scruton's academic career developed, so did his career as a journalist and critic. As he recounts in this book, he became increasingly disenchanted with the academic world but came to enjoy a growing reputation as a perceptive and pungent critic of modern society and its moral values - especially as advocated by the so-called politically correct.

He now lives entirely from his pen and delights his admirers by writing about subjects as varied as Wagner, the Pet Shop Boys, animal rights and the freedom of the individual.

Here he covers these topics but also includes touching and illuminating accounts of his friendships and influences - with Iris Murdoch and John Bayley, Mary Warnock and Robin Holloway, among others.