Love in the library
Patricia Fara enjoys David Bodanis's Passionate Minds, a vivid evocation of Emilie du Châtelet, and her lover, Voltaire.
Manet and the history men
Tom Lubbock on an art book that loses sight of its own purpose, Ross King's The Judgement of Paris: Manet, Meissonier and an Artistic Revolution.
Laird of the marshes
David Morphet admires Rory Stewart's attempt to bring order to occupied Iraq as told in Occupational Hazards
Don’t blame it on the Buddha
John Gray enjoys Pankaj Mishra's thought-provoking account of European influence, Temptations of the West.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, Swan, Stratford
The wild one
Aware of the intimidating reputation of Mary Wesley, author of The Camomile Lawn, her daughter-in-law, Xinran, was nervous about meeting her. In fact, she found the loving mother she'd always craved.
They’re marching into history
Henry McDonald looks at Brian Kennaway's brave account of the decline and fall of the Orange Order, A Tradition Betrayed.
Lie back and think of Britten
Adam Mars-Jones finds that John Bridcut has set himself a daunting task in Britten's Children - to prove whether 'Darling Benjamin' was a mentor or a menace to boys.
The courtesan’s tale
If Love Were All shows Frances Stevenson to be a true political pioneer whose influence extended far beyond her role as David Lloyd George's secretary, says Hilary Spurling.
Decline and fall of the national trust
Geoff Mulgan offers a wise analysis of why our rulers betray us in Good and Bad Power. But do his errors speak volumes, asks Peter Preston?
Food for thought in great style
Nicholas Lezard gets stuck in to William Leith's The Hungry Years: Confessions of a Food Addict.
Secrets and lives
Thomas Hardy may at last have found the biographer he deserves in Ralph Pite's Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life, says Jem Poster.
The big 50
A month ago, we asked you to vote for the best ever film made from a novel. The results are in, and we reveal the readers' chart of the top 50 film adaptations. Our critics Peter Bradshaw and Xan Brooks cast their eyes over your favourites.
The history of a reluctant hero
The man made famous by Hotel Rwanda offers a compelling and horrifying account of the 1994 genocide in An Ordinary Man, says Simon Garfield.
Beauty and her beasts
A biography of Ava Gardner shows that Hollywood had a bad girl to rival the boys. By Chris Petit.