Bad sex with Hitler gets my Christmas turkey award

Mailer's first novel for a decade was hailed by The Times for its "audacity" and described as "compelling". The book takes the form of a psychic biography of Hitler and tells the story of the birth, childhood and adolescence of the future F¸hrer, who as a young boy wets his bed and loves seeing bees gassed.

So far, so ludicrous. Except it gets worse. Our narrator is a devil's angel who is present at the conception of Hitler, takes time out to attend Oscar Wilde's trial and witnesses the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. It's pure literary Alzheimer's.

Mailer's publishers could have done him a favour by at the very least editing his magnum opus. But like Dame Iris Murdoch, by the end of his career he had become such a sacred cow that his publishers were too timid to change a word.

Not surprisingly, in 2007 it was the overhyped books that turned out to be the most disappointing. Tina Brown's Diana biography, The Diana Chronicles, never lived up to its extravagant star billing this summer. It was full of rehashed old stories and contained no fresh revelations. The book was all gong and no dinner.

The Ian McEwan bandwagon got rolling again with On Chesil Beach. Yet irrespective of its literary merits, it shouldn't have been eligible for the Booker Prize because it was far too short. The Booker's own rules state submissions must be " full length". The prize administrators should either come clean and decide what "full length" entails or they should change the rules. They can't keep fudging it.

Lastly, Khaled Hosseini has attracted many admirers since the publication of The Kite Runner. Eight million admirers worldwide, in fact, including my family, who passed it round a swimming pool one summer as if it was intoxicating contraband. I never checked it out but I did read Hosseini's follow-up, A Thousand Splendid Suns, published this year to wide acclaim.

Set in Afghanistan, it follows the lives of two women as they endure war, poverty and hardship in a society where men have the upper hand. This is ethnic-lite fiction that is so sentimental it should carry a health warning. And it boasts one of the most cringeworthy lines of the year: "Each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world."

Inevitably, some books are buoyed up on the author's past reputation rather than judged on their own merits. I just wish that in 2008, critics would call a turkey a turkey. But I doubt they will.