A noxious form of argument
Noam Chomsky has allowed bile and rhetoric to replace intellectual rigour in his latest diatribe against the present United States administration, says Peter Beaumont.
She knew how to grow old disgracefully
In Wild Mary, Patrick Marnham presents us with a writer who lived by her own rules, says Rebecca Seal
Turing and the IT factor
The Man Who Knew Too Much shows Alan Turing as socially inept and sexually frustrated. The father of the modern computer was only truly at home with rotors, valves and circuit boards, says Peter Conrad.
Just like a Rolling Stone
According to her biographer, Fred Vermorel, Kate Moss has fulfilled her ambition to join the rock'n'roll pantheon. Rafael Behr finds out more in Addicted to Love.
Not the full Bette
Charlotte Chandler's account of Bette Davis, The Girl Who Walked Home Alone, leaves much unanswered, says Carole Cadwalladr.
The spy who saved us
The figure of James Bond consoled a country in terminal decline, argues Simon Winder in The Man Who Saved Britain, an entertainingly personal romp through Ian Fleming's potboilers, says Sinclair McKay.
The scavengers
Director Katie Mitchell always thought of Chekhov as a lyrical, romantic writer - until she came to put on The Seagull, in which she discovered unexpected cruelty and violence.
The chain gang
Matt Seaton enjoys the story of one man's obsessive pursuit of sporting greatness, in Michael Hutchinson's The Hour: Sporting Immortality the Hard Way.
Over and out
Harry Thompson's determination to complete his comic cricket memoir in Penguins Stopped Play impresses Tim de Lisle.
Straight-up guys
Des Wilson's Swimming with the Devil Fish is a compelling study of Britain's current obsession with poker, says Anthony Holden.
Daddy dearest
Alex Clark enjoys In the Name of the Father, the Daughter and the Holy Spirits, Isabella Rossellini's sentimental celebration of her father, director Roberto Rossellini.
Postcards from the edge
Martha Gellhorn was feted as a war correspondent, whether from Dachau or D-Day, but it's her letters that reveal some of her finest writing, says Gaby Wood.
New emperor, new clothes, same result
Alex Butterworth is left feeling disappointed by Peter Marshall's study of Rudolf II, The Theatre of the World: Astrology and Magic in Renaissance Prague.
Magical realism
Anthony Bailey bravely attempts to pin down Constable's genius in A Kingdom of His Own - though all you really need to do is see the artist's work for yourself, says Charles Saumarez Smith.
The man who goes to Hell
Ciaran Carson hears the ghost of Dante at the gate in Barabara Reynolds's biography.