Social butterfly
Alex Clark on The Milk of Paradise: Diaries 1993-1997 by James Lees-Milne.
The Victorian Bob Geldof
Nicola Humble enjoys Ruth Cowen's life of Victorian celebrity chef Alexis Soyer, Relish.
Street signs
Edward Hammond gives a practitioner's view of four authors' writings on graffiti.
Music to our eyes
It's the detail that makes the story ... Joe Boyd on Studs Turkels's collection of musical interviews, And They All Sang.
Going the whole hog
Sue Birtwistle gobbles up the story of Bill Buford's transformation from writer to chef, Heat.
Henry IV, Parts One and Two
Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon
The big chill
When you need someone to soundtrack your story set in the Arctic, who better than ambient king Brian Eno? Author Michel Faber celebrates a collaboration full of surprises.
The uglier side of Igor
A masterly biography of Stravinsky reveals how the composer's dying career led to elephants in pink tutus, says Peter Conrad.
Home truths from little darlings
The experience of being young is explored intensively by Libby Brooks in The Story of Childhood. Jo Revill is more than impressed by what she finds.
Toni Morrison’s Beloved: ghosts of a brutal past
In the final instalment of her series on the novel, Jane Smiley on why Toni Morrison’s Beloved - a sensational story of slavery and racism in America - has endured.
Upwardly mobile
Ian Sansom on bootstraps and betterment in Andrew Miller's The Earl of Petticoat Lane.
Savage but serene
Byron Rogers addresses the riddles of RS Thomas's life with panache in The Man Who Went Into the West, says Andrew Motion.
Militant misses
June Purvis on a feisty account of the struggle for women's suffrage, Jill Liddington's Rebel Girls.
Dreams of the midwest
By his own admission, Garrison Keillor has a 'great face for radio' - yet he finds himself on the verge of becoming a Hollywood star now that A Prairie Home Companion, his widely loved show about small-town America, has come to the big screen. Oliver Burkeman meets him.
Hey, mister DJ
John Peel's autobiography, Margrave of the Marshes, is not only funny, but is tender and moving, says David Smith.