Written several years ago when the suggestion that he might one day be crowned Mayor of London was something which would have made a good joke on Have I Got News For You, ‘Seventy Two Virgins’ is Boris Johnson’s first attempt at writing fiction. My sister and I are both huge Boris fans and so my mother bought us the book when it was still in hardback a few Christmases ago as a present to share. My sister read it fairly promptly, but for reasons I can’t explain I never quite seemed to get round to it. I devoted months of my life to struggling through weighty German classics like Buddenbrooks and der Zauberberg and somehow I forgot about poor old Boris until last weekend when I finished Rob Roy and was suddenly at a bit of a loose end for exciting reading matter. I went eagerly to the study and began scanning the shelves in an attempt to find where my sister might have put it when she finished with it, but our bookshelves at home are rather overloaded and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t locate it at all In the end I had to call her (thanks be to Skype!) and between us we figured out that it was hiding behind a Russian dictionary and a copy of Doctor Zhivago. (more…)