Irritating? Moi?
Laura Barton on the girls about town in Plum Sykes' Bergdorf Blondes
Light but sound: John Banville rereads The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Twenty years since it was first published, Banville returns to the Czech Republic’s famous fictional export: Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Dear Ringo. It’s hot. Wish you were here
Ringo Starr's Postcards from the Boys gives us interesting snapshots of pop's greatest adventure
Claws out for Crabbe
Alan Hollinghurst finds the creator of Peter Grimes unkindly served in Neil Powell's new study of George Crabbe
Fallen idol
Maya Jaggi on Njabulo Ndebele's searching view of public icons and private liberation, The Cry of Winnie Mandela
Castro’s cult of destiny
Volker Skierka's revealing portrait of Fidel Castro sees beyond the self-propaganda, says Jay Parini
When Stephen met Sylvia
Truth is elusive, writes John Sutherland, and contrasting accounts of a literary dinner party attended by three generations of poets highlight the problems facing the assiduous biographer
Gaspers and champagne
Simon Gray's wonderful, funny The Smoking Diaries makes Stephanie Merritt want to have dinner with the survivor who has lived life to the full
The elusive Mr Greene
If anyone could portray the real Graham Greene, it should have been his companion of 30 years. Robert McCrum is disappointed by Yvonne Cloetta's In Search of a Beginning
The plot thickens
David Riggs's The World of Christopher Marlowe leaves the doomed playwright as fascinating and as mysterious as ever, says Jane Stevenson
Victoria’s secret
She works for the glossiest of glossy magazines, socialises with the Park Avenue princesses she writes about, and sold her first novel for $600,000. But has Plum Sykes of Sevenoaks taken Manhattan, or has Manhattan taken her? Hadley Freeman finds out.
Earth and stones
Mourid Barghouti's personal and emotional look at the Palestine question, I Saw Ramallah, touches Avi Shlaim
The man within
Ian Thomson welcomes Yvonne Cloetta's In Search of a Beginning, a life of Graham Greene that is faithful to the person, not the gossip
Gielgud’s secret life in the nether lands
Richard Mangan's selection of Gielgud's letters will do little to embellish his reputation, says Peter Conrad
King of the jungle
John Banville warms to Joe Eszterhas, screenwriter extraordinaire and a true Hollywood Animal