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.

Breasts, bottoms and so forth

Desmond Morris rightly admires the beauty of the female hand in The Naked Woman, says Catherine Bennett. But has he never seen a bunion?

The society of swine

Lyall Watson's The Whole Hog and Fergus Henderson's Nose To Tail Eating are enough to get Ian Sansom reaching for the pork scratchings.

Not just a pretty face

Eric Ives revisits the life of Henry VIII's most influential queen with The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. But do we learn anything new?

Germs of endearment

Richard Wollheim's dysfunctional family star in his intense memoir, Germs.

Stable relationships

A love for horses is like any other, writes Jane Smiley, who rediscovered her childhood passion in middle age. In this extract from her new book, A Year At the Races, she describes her fascination with the Thoroughbred, on and off the racecourse.

Hits and myths

Bernard Cornwell concocts a Saxon king fit for the 21st century in the first part of his Alfred the Great trilogy, The Last Kingdom.

Maximum Bob

Mike Marqusee is relieved to find that the first volume of Bob Dylan's autobiography, Chronicles, is honest and heartfelt.

Never forget

Peter Hain is moved by Hilda Bernstein's account of one family's battle against the apartheid machine, The World that Was Ours.

The cat off the mat

Anthony Thwaite enjoys A Working Life, Jeremy Treglown's biography of the novelist and celebrated man of letters, VS Pritchett.

Just William

Stephen Greenblatt and Richard Wilson combine erudition with speculation in two new biographies of Shakespeare, Will in the World and Secret Shakespeare. Only one keeps calling him Will...