To adapt Gore Vidal, whenever a colleague succeeds in writing a book a little something in me dies. How do they do it? How do they hold down a job and a life and have the creative energy to produce books? For years my shelves have been filling with unread books by people I work with, who get up very early in the morning, or stay up very late at night, to toil on their own projects. Now I've actually had to read some of them.

“Bit of a poisoned chalice this one,” Richard Whitehead, the deputy editor of Books, said as he dumped 17 volumes on my desk and aked for a round-up of works by Times writers.

The world of book reviewing is full of people writing about books written by people they know. At least this time you are clear about that. I shall be as transparent as possible.

So let's start with one that I had read even before I was given this assignment, Agent Zigzag (Bloomsbury, £7.99/offer £7.59) by Ben Macintyre (old friend, regular lunching partner, married to my son's godmother). A cracker of a Second World War double-agent yarn. But no need to take my word for it, it's on the short-list for the Costa Book Awards and Tom Hanks is planning a film. Anyway, enough about Macintyre, he has had far too much publicity already.

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Celebrity festive favourites, part two

More Christmas classics from some of Britain's best-loved celebrities

• Celebrity festive favourites

Background

• The Times Christmas choice: thrillers

• The Times Christmas choice: science fiction / fantasy

• The Times Christmas choice: sport

• The Times Christmas choice: politics

• The Times Christmas Choice: nostalgia

Background

• The Times Christmas choice: food

• The Times Christmas choice: wine

• The Times Christmas choice: poetry

• The Times Christmas Choice: photography

• The Times Christmas Choice: Times writers

Giles Whittell's Spitfire Women of World War II (HarperPress, £20/£18) is another on which I received regular updates over lunch during its creation. Annoyingly, this account of the women who flew the planes is impeccably researched and written, and surprisingly absorbing, given that I've never been able to get excited about these legendary aircraft and had heard the stories several times before from the author's mouth.

Storm & Conquest by Stephen Taylor (Faber, £20/£18), who used to knock my copy into shape in the days when we both worked for the foreign desk, is an elegant reconstruction of a forgotten episode of history: the unlikely-sounding destruction of the British fleet by the French in the Indian Ocean, a few years after Nelson's triumph at Trafalgar.

A Voyage Round John Mortimer (Viking, £25/£22.50) by Valerie Grove (my children inherited, third hand, books that once belonged to her kids, but I don't know if she knows that) is the comprehensive authorised biography of the indefatigable lawyer and author, rich in anecdote.

I have only glimpsed Simon Barnes in the distance as he leaves the office for somewhere more exciting, but his “Wild Notebook” is my favourite bit of Saturday escapism, and if you agree you will want to make sure that somebody sticks How to be Wild (Short Books, £14.99/£13.49) into the big hiking sock you'll hang by the fireplace on Christmas Eve.

In Why the Lion Grew its Mane (Papadakis, £20/£18), Lewis Smith, our science and environment reporter, has produced a lavishly illustrated miscellany of recent scientific discoveries. In characteristically clear style he explains all sorts of amazing stuff, so that even scientific halfwits like me can follow.

I have never met Brian Clarke, nor do I have any interest in angling. So I was taken aback, while flicking through our fishing correspondent's slab of a book On Fishing (Collins, £20/£22.50) to find myself hooked by lines such as: “In 59 percent of matings, the female trout fakes her orgasm.”

Fish play only a minor part in Should I Flush My Goldfish Down the Loo? (Hodder, £9.99/£9) by Joe Joseph, a collection of his witty Modern Morals column in Times2. I tried to catch him out in the canteen by asking what I should write about it. “It wouldn't be ethical for me to say,” he replied. But then added: “Just write something that we can put on the paperback. Then you can have your name on the back of the book.”

Other compendiums to dip into include Mission Accomplished (JR Books, £12.99/£11.69) a feast of ill-advised bons mots that politicians must now wish they had never uttered, co-compiled by Matthew Parris (we had lunch once ten years ago). Jonathan Pugh (old friend, attended his book launch) provides plenty of chortles in The Best of Pugh (Virgin, £5.99/5.69), his pocket cartoons from The Times. Our style guru Lucia Van der Post (whom I have a vague recollection of talking to once at a Christmas party while drunk) has distilled her considerable knowldege of glamour and good living into Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me (John Murray, £16.99/£15.29).

Shopping While Drunk (John Murray, £12.99/£11.69) is an often amusing A to Z of aspects of modern life that the four authors, including Times Online journalist Michael Moran, secretly admire. The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls (Viking, £18.99/ £15.99), co-authored by Sarah Vine (sits on the other side of the filing cabinets from me, generous in sharing treats) is for sisters who felt hard done by when their brothers got The Dangerous Book for Boys and is exactly what it says it is.

Some fiction: Seizure (Faber, £10.99/£9.89) by Erica Wagner (literary editor of this newspaper, kind enough to give me occasional work) is a dark, shocking, intensely lyrical first novel about a man and woman who inhabit a dream-like world and slowly unravel the truth about how they are connected. David Wilson, an assistant night editor, has, damn him, produced an enjoyable, funny, touching novel. And I'm not just saying that because This Age We're Living In (Black Swan, £6.99/£6.64) is about what I know: a grumpy newspaper lifestyle columnist.

The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy (out in Arrow paperback next month, £6.99/£6.64) by Fiona Neill (had a cup of tea at her house once when meeting mutual friends) is a novelisation of her funny, shrewdly observed Magazine columns on the pitfalls of motherhood.

I met Alan Coren a few times at Times parties and his son Giles is a mate with whom I catch up about once a year. But the main interest I must declare regarding Alan is that colleagues rumbled a few years ago that my secret fantasy was to be as funny as him. 69 for 1 (JR Books, £12.99/£11.69), published shortly before his death this year, pained me because I realised that I would never write a book as witty as this. Nevertheless, I am determined to write a book. Any book. Just so I can be included in this round-up next year, and don't have to do it myself.

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