I am not inclined usually to fall for this kind of congratulatory memoir. But this is Anthony Cheetham, publisher extraordinaire.

He has brought many books to market down the years from Frank Herbet’s Dune to Michael Connelly’s Bosch detective series. He has popularised history with Antonia Fraser and latterly much science and science fiction.

There is a photograph of his library in a converted barn in Oxfordshire. It looks like a set for a Stephen Spielberg film called The Dictionary.

Themes, as he says, are: “History is a looking glass to make sense of the past. The Sciences define our understanding of the cosmos and formulate projects for the future. Fiction is the playlist of what it means to be human. Philosophy is the spirit of the wisdom that binds them all.” And they are all here.

We start with Homer and then Tolkien and even Donald Trump, who did not write or even read the Art of the Deal but Anthony is also a deal maker. The recommendations are trite and sweet – not to compete, perhaps, with the authors but room enough to say thank you to everyone who has helped along the way.

Sadly quite a few of the books are out of print or no longer easily available, even on Abe books. I really want to read Aime Tschiffely’s Southern Cross to Pole Star, first published in 1982. And quite a few others.  I reviewed one of his favourites here:

For a publisher I might point out someone was struggling with their InDesign techniques on the layouts, and £25 for 200 slim pages is pushing the boat out a bit far.

But it is hard to argue with someone who was instrumental in bringing the likes of Kingsley Amis, Ben Okri, Ian Rankin to print, who revived the reputations of Thomas Mann, Joan Collins and even Christopher Wood, aka Timothy Lea for Confessions of a Window Cleaner. And others, for example the novelisation of the film Alien by Alan Dean Foster.

Across 75 years, one can only wish there were more individuals like him with the vision to champion great writing through a corporate world. Chapeau.