Nightmare visions of the master
Nicholas Lezard has spent some time trying to imagine how Robert Hughes's Goya could have been better.
Beauty and the feast
Nigella Lawson conjures up the food we dream of cooking in Feast, says Matthew Fort.
Chortling cherub with a raging heart
The final, admirable volume of Bevis Hillier's life of John Betjeman safely instals the poet in the national pantheon.
The anchorman’s anchorman
Jon Snow's perceptive, entertaining memoir, Shooting History, reveals the making of a classic liberal - and helps us to understand why he is our most trusted presenter, says Peter Preston.
Stream of conscience
Clare Short's tactical blunder damaged her reputation, but she still stands tall compared to her former cabinet colleagues. John Kampfner assesses her memoir, An Honorable Deception?
Equally at home on the range…
A ballet star at 16, politician's wife at 40, rancher at 60. There was more to Margot Fonteyn than Nureyev, as Meredith Daneman shows in her long-awaited biography of the much-loved ballerina.
Mordant satires test the real state of the nation
Robert McCrum on books from PJ O'Rourke, Carl Hiaasen and Dave Eggers.
At home with the creator spiritus
Gustav Mahler's letters to his wife are sometimes too painful to read, writes Alan Hollinghurst.
The Buerk vs Snow show
Jon Snow's Shooting History and Michael Buerk's The Road Taken are long-winded affairs, says Roger Mosey.
Peak practice
Pankaj Mishra spent so long gazing at the Himalayas that it took him 12 years to write his magical tale of his encounters with the Buddha, An End to Suffering.
What’s your poison, Lucrezia?
Sarah Bradford sticks to the personal in her biography of Lucrezia Borgia, but sadly can't bring her to life, says David Jays.
Being Elvis Costello
Graeme Thomson's biography of one of our greatest rock stars, Complicated Shadows, will please everyone, except its subject, says Phil Hogan.
The man who fell to earth
Charles Nicholl's clear-eyed new life of Leonardo da Vinci sees Renaissance Man in a baser, more human light, says Peter Conrad.
The invisible woman
Jennie Erdal wrote letters, speeches and articles for a flamboyant London publisher. But when he asked her to write a novel - a passionate romance - in his name she faced her biggest challenge.
The bad girl of Rome
Kathryn Hughes appreciates Sarah Bradford's reappraisal of the infamous Lucrezia Borgia.