My mate Martin
Thomas Healy's I Have Heard You Calling in the Night is a poignant and enjoyable memoir of a man redeemed by his dog, says Paul Bailey.
Immortal longings
Richard Davenport-Hines captivates Simon Callow with the powerful imaginative vortex of Proust's life and work in A Night at the Majestic.
The voice of America
Through his novels - and heroes - Mark Twain was indisputably the United States's first literary superstar. Ron Powers examines his life and work in an exhilarating new biography, says Robert McCrum.
Living on the frontline
Janine di Giovanni's war memoirs, The Place at the End of the World, will inspire a new generation of reporters, says Tim Judah.
Empire building
Boris Johnson's scattergun survey of the Roman Empire, The Dream of Rome, is perfectly enjoyable and mostly convincing, says Alex Clark.
The rake’s rackety progress
Anthony Holden does full justice to the extraordinary life of Mozart's key librettist in The Man Who Wrote Mozart, says Rafael Behr.
The first boy wonder
Stanley Sadie and David Cairns take very different approaches to the life and music of Mozart in their exemplary biographies, says Jane Stevenson.
Creatures of the night
As Tate Britain's major spring exhibition Gothic Nightmares opens this month, Audrey Niffenegger succumbs to the dark seductions of Blake and Fuseli.
Conquering history
Hugo Hamilton avoids the temptations of nostalgia and amnnesia in his memoir of adolescence, The Sailor in the Wardrobe, says Terry Eagleton.
Image consciousness
Claire Armitstead on Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl by cross-dressing prizewinner Grayson Perry and Wendy Jones.
Shells and scalpels
Phil Whitaker is impressed by Contact Wounds, Jonathan Kaplan's unapologetic memoirs of a medic at war.
100 years too late
James Fenton on the autobiography of Colley Cibber.
A definitive lesson in how not to go to war
Uncertainty, self-delusion and the devastating consequences of conflict characterise three very different accounts of the Iraq war - the most damning from the President's man in Baghdad, says Peter Beaumont.
From victim to hero
Ruben Gallego's account of his remarkable escape from a childhood spent in Russian institutions, White on Black, leaves us wanting to know more about his life, says Adam Mars-Jones.
Last supper with Proust
A modernist dinner party in Paris is the setting for Richard Davenport-Hines's adoring portrayal of his idol in A Night at the Majestic, says Peter Conrad.