Stranger Than Kindness

by Nick Cave (Canongate)

As if being able to make a record while grieving wasn’t remarkable enough, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ album Ghosteen is extraordinary for its artistry: it’s a thing of beautiful and painfully direct craft. This new tome goes deep into Cave’s creative process, via his artwork, lyrics and photographs, and his ever-succinct commentary.

Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir and Me

by Deirdre Bair (Atlantic)

Bair penned stunning, intimate biographies of these two famously reticent literary giants, both of whom lived on the same Parisian street and studiously avoided each other. Here the author recalls her encounters with the pair – prepare to be transported.

Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen

by Greg Jenner (W&N)

This juicy account of celebrity romps through 300 years of stardom – touching on the coveted earlobes of a 19th-century ballerina and a three-year old who upstaged Liszt on his UK tour – as well as examining the economic cogs that drive celebrity and our hunger for it.

Broken Greek

by Pete Paphides (Quercus)

The avuncular pop scribe writes two books in one here: a vivid memoir of Brum-based Greek-Cypriot family life in the 70s, intertwined with recollections of the era’s pop stars and their relative merits as potential childminders. Warm and eccentric, it’s rightly being talked up as the Fever Pitch of pop.

Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps: Designing Graphic Props for Filmmaking

by Annie Atkins (Phaidon)

With fans including Jeff Goldblum, master prop creator Atkins is the visionary behind the tiny details in The Grand Budapest Hotel among others. Filled with insights, her account of finding magic in the mundane is utterly absorbing.