Move over, David Lodge and Malcolm Bradbury. Paisley-born novelist Evelyn Hood has turned her attention to higher education in her latest book, Forward by Degrees. It may be fact rather than fiction, marking Paisley University's centenary, but it does not lack entertainment, such as reminiscences of former principal Edwin Kerr. He had a strong sense of his status. Former librarian Hamish Maclachlan tells of the governors offering Kerr a Rover 3000, which he refused because the librarian drove one, and the principal must therefore have a Jaguar. "That was one occasion when I accidentally won Dr Kerr's goodwill."