"...perky, clever and rather wise, these pieces still slip down as easily as a nice cold glass of something crisp and white..."

"This exhaustive look at Sylvia Plath’s turbulent life is determined not to apportion blame..."

"There’s just something about Joe, as this short biography from New Yorker writer Evan Osnos illustrates..."

"(a) raging, splendid, defiant, crazy tigress of a book..."

"Every page of celebrity photographer David Bailey’s memoir reeks of testosterone in his unfiltered look back at his career..."

"Cliff Richard can’t escape the pain in this breezy account of his long career..."

"Feaver shares his subject’s style and timing...."

"The 'poet laureate of punk' revisits his rise, fall and comeback in a funny and unflinching memoir..."

"What lingers longest is the awful mundanity of the events leading up to and after the killing..."

"Alathea the diarist is repeatedly charmed but often mystified by her heroine. ..."

"when she stops trying quite so strenuously, she becomes a writer of tender, zestful prose..."

"In this mammoth book, historian John Ferris sheds much light on GCHQ, arguably the most secretive of he UK’s intelligence services..."

"How the 'slackest generation' became our Second World War heroes..."

"Jasper Rees’s immense, authoritative biography of Victoria Wood..."

"how an apparently dull textile magnate became one of the world’s most discerning collectors of post-Impressionist art..."

"the story it narrates is timeless..."

"This fascinating history reminds us of the terrible symmetry between the two dictators..."

" This biography saves this decent man from his bewigged and bonkers reputation..."

"Tom Bower pulls his punches with his life of Boris Johnson..."

"The Artful Dickens is both an exposure of the trickster’s methods and a celebration of close reading..."

"A great biography of a great playwright..."

"RF Foster’s enjoyable biography comes into its own on the poet’s navigation through the Troubles..."

"Francesca Wade has made a lofty, secluded square into a terrific subject for her first book...."

"entertaining but frustrating..."

"It is a superb biography, calling out for film treatment, full of perception and compassion...."

"In her new collection Mantel Pieces, Hilary Mantel’s critical voice is superior, unkind – and deeply enjoyable..."

"he sets out to put Alaric at the centre of his “outsider’s history”..."

"The collection comprises perfectly crafted performances, slightly out-of-focus subjects, moments of unvarnished expression..."

"Endlessly interesting selection of short stories..."