Requiem for a Family Business, by Jonathan Guinness (Pan, £7.99 in UK)

The gospel according to Guinness? Well, not quite; Jonathan Guinness worked for Reuters news agency for a few years, and he not only knows a good story when he sees one, he knows how to tell it, too, which makes this the perfect layman's introduction to the whole sorry saga of the 1985 Distillers takeover which brought the company to the brink of ruin and landed its charismatic managing director, Ernest Saunders, in jail. Guinness has, of course, been good for most of the people most of the time, and Jonathan Guinness recounts its entire history with affection and, on occasion, startling frankness.