The master and his mistresses

Elizabeth Cowling offers a new perspective on the life of a genius with her edition of Roland Penrose's notebooks, Visiting Picasso, says Matt Collings.

Roundabouts and Roundheads

Diane Purkiss illuminates the English civil war through the human detail of her people’s history, says Kathryn Hughes.

Lost in Japan

Falling Blossom by Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams is a tender Madame Butterfly of a tale, says Anthony Thwaite.

Rich fare

Anthony Bourdain's collection of essays, The Nasty Bits, is not just for foodies, says Rebecca Seal.

With friends like these

David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau are buried beneath a mountain of evidence in David Edmonds and John Eidinow's account of their quarrel, Rousseau's Dog, says Tom Williams

What a fully fledged head case

Robespierre may have wanted to save humanity, but he didn't like people. Ruth Scurr's biography of France's most brutal revolutionary, Fatal Purity, makes for depressing reading, says Rafael Behr.

Word perfect

The Ring of Words shows how one of the world's most popular books was inspired by nearly two years of drudgery, says Kelly Grovier.

It’s an actor’s life for me

Memoirs from Richard E Grant and Anna Massey reveal the mayhem of movie making and the craft of acting, says Ranjit Bolt.

Home truths

Alain de Botton explores the emotional impact of the way we build in The Architecture of Happiness. Architecture is too important to be left to the architects, says Charles Saumarez Smith.

The KO blow from RKO

Philip French salutes the second part of Simon Callow's majestic life of Orson Welles, which charts the director's loathing for Hollywood after the release of Citizen Kane.

Orcadian rhythms

Maggie Fergusson's insightful and compassionate biography of George Mackay Brown reveals the physical and mental difficulties that beset one Scotland's greatest lyric poets, says Kathleen Jamie.

Hamlet

Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon

In love and war

In a new play about Rebecca West's visit to the Nuremberg war trials, the writer finally shakes off her scandalous past - by having an affair. By Kathryn Hughes.

A saint she ain’t

Lee Server's biography reveals Ava Gardner as a hard-drinking, wisecracking, libidinous vamp, a liberated woman before it was even invented. But she paid a high price for her beauty, says Carole Cadwalladr.