Mixed emotions

Bernice Rubens fills her poignant memoir, When I Grow Up, with life and humour. She seems almost too animated a writer to have died, says Kate Kellaway.

America the bountiful

Sean O'Hagan finds a more reflective Louis Theroux revisiting some of his richest television sources in The Call of the Weird.

George W’s nemesis

If you can't abide Michael Moore, Al Franken's your man. David Smith hails The Truth With Jokes.

I’m Voltaire, buy me

Roger Pearson constructs his biography of the great French author, Voltaire Almighty, like a picaresque novel. Peter Conrad enjoys the ride.

Not about heroes

Andrey Kurkov on A Writer at War, Vasily Grossman's long-suppressed memoir.

Down with the kids

Christopher Priest tries to connect with Charles Burns's graphic novel of teenage angst, Black Hole.

Call him Herman

Moby-Dick's creator is well served by Andrew Delbanco's new biography, Melville, says Anita Sethi.

George, Tony and me

Is the furore surrounding the memoirs of our former man in Washington justified? Andrew Stephen examines Christopher Meyer's DC Confidential.

The goodtime Guggenheim

Mary V Dearborn's biography of Peggy Guggenheim, the 20th century's great collector, gives her the treatment she deserves, says Lucasta Miller.

Liberty’s rake

James Buchan enjoys Roger Pearson's elegant and learned life of the man who embodied the Enlightenment, Voltaire Almighty.

Unearthly powers

Andrew Biswell betrays few doubts with his confident title, The Real Life of Anthony Burgess, but what is the real legacy of the maddening and majestic literary giant, asks Robert McCrum

Naked truths

A sumptuous monograph captures Lucian Freud's mastery of the human form, says Kelly Grovier.

An Irish rag-bag

Lionel Shriver would have welcomed a little more discipline in Thomas Lynch's wide-ranging memoir, Booking Passage.

Mamas and papa

Sean Wilsey's account of a family's disintegration, Oh the Glory of It All, fails to ignite, says Patrick Gale.