Despite their philosophical and constitutional difference, there are parallels between the political careers of David Trimble and Gerry Adams. Both started out as militant young firebrands and learnt over the years that there was a better way. Both were among the first in their respective communities to draw this lesson. Both saw the need to move towards the centre and sought to lead their followers in the same direction. Both understand that neither community in the North can achieve its aims without the consent of the other.
Yet these are very different books. The Adams volume is quite revealing on a personal level but provides less insight into his politics. Trimble's speeches tell us little about his personal tastes and peccadilloes but give a fairly rounded view of his strategic and philosophical approach.
The Adams book is a collection of columns which appeared under his name in Niall O'Dowd's Irish Voice newspaper, published weekly in New York. They are "Letters from Afar" which, though written in haste, never fail to make a political point. Usually this is done at the expense of the unionists or the British Government: like a forward observer on the field of battle, Adams directs the artillery fire of his Irish-American friends towards the latest target.
Frequently the target is the UUP leader and, in a column written just after Sinn Fein's admission to all-party negotiations in September, 1997, Adams complains that Trimble's objective - for the moment anyway - is "to subvert the peace talks and to reduce their potential and their capacity to usher in real change".
Trimble's "take" on things is probably best presented in an off-the-cuff address to Young Unionists - happily tape-recorded for posterity by the journalist Eamonn Mallie - where he explains the basis of his strategy and why it is sometimes better to engage with the "enemy" in a creative way than to ignore them and hope they will go away.
Anyone who was present on that occasion, as I was, will recall the hostility of his youthful audience towards the party leader who, they felt, was compromising their cause out of existence. But an insouciant Trimble was determined to tell them the facts of life. "When the republican movement was wholly involved in terrorism, it was simple enough, we knew what we were dealing with," he said. But the new situation created by the peace process required unionists to get involved even in face-to-face talks with their opponents - as Sir James Craig did with Michael Collins - because that was the surest way to influence the course of events in a unionist direction.
One senses that both men - perhaps more especially Trimble - started out in the process with the exclusive intention of defending the interests of their own tribe rather than the community as a whole. But over time they appeared to move towards the position espoused by Trimble's hero, Edmund Burke, whom he quotes in his Nobel Peace Prize address. Speaking on the role of parliament, Burke said it was not "a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests" but a deliberative assembly - "with one interest, that of the whole".
Adams, too, reflecting on the latest deadly feud among loyalists, writes that the "sad, sordid mess" has to be cleared up and a decent future built for as many people as possible - "and that includes the young loyalist men of the Shankill Road and other once-proud loyalist areas". They, too, must have their place in the scheme of things.
Do they mean it? The best answer so far is that a lot of what they have both put up with makes little sense unless they are sincere in their aims. Sadly, Trimble's political future looks rocky although he is a wily operator who cannot be written off lightly. Adams has a stronger political base but, as he points out in one of his columns, his life has frequently been threatened and he was shot five times in a loyalist attack in Belfast.
The Trimble book would have benefited from explanatory footnotes and an index. It is rather cheaply presented: a man of his substance deserved better. But it is still essential reading for students of the peace process.
The Adams volume is of necessity more ephemeral but should also be read: like him or loathe him, he isn't going away, you know.
Deaglβn de BrΘad·n is Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times. His book, The Far Side of Revenge: Making Peace in Northern Ireland, was published this year by the Collins Press.