Frozen wastes
Ice Road, Gillian Slovo's novel of Stalin's purges, gives a voice to the dead and the dispossessed, says Linda Grant
Get that man down from the roof at once
Rolling news made Rageh Omaar a TV star, but its relentless demands limit his memoir of the Iraq war, Revolution Day, says Jon Snow
Vodka for breakfast, secretary for lunch, signed the Stones at tea
Walter Yetnikoff's confessional, Howling at the Moon, is an entertaining, high-grade gossip sheet from the heart of the music industry, says Caspar Llewellyn Smith
Bangs to whimpers
There's a lot of hype about Sixties film and much of it is in Peter Cowie's Revolution!, says Peter Conrad
Book of the month
David Horspool on Train by Pete Dexter
Cold comfort
Ali Smith is awed by Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary, Rebecca Brown's unflinching look at bereavement
Patchwork postscript
Andrew Motion enjoys an episodic sequel to the biographer Michael Holroyd's own life story, Mosaic
Bittersweet symphonies
Long before he won the Booker prize, DBC Pierre was dodging bailiffs and battling depression. Suicide seemed the only way out - until he discovered Brahms, Elgar and Rachmaninov ...
Finally, his jigsaw is finished
Michael Holroyd finally steps out of the shadows in his biographical meditation, Mosaic
A passionate witness on the road to Sarajevo
Bill Carter tells how he found horror and humanity amid the tragedy of the Bosnian war in Fools Rush In
How the stubborn gendarme trapped his serial killer
JF Abgrall reveals how he tracked down a serial killer in a gripping memoir, Inside the Mind of a Killer
On greed and gherkins
AC Grayling ranges from Shakespeare to the origins of the universe in his collection of essays, The Mystery of Things
Irina’s small present to Soviet history
Gillian Slovo puts history to the test at the Siege of Leningrad in her bold novel, Ice Road
An artificial paradise
AS Byatt on Baudelaire in Chains, Frank Hilton's study of the poet that focuses on his opium addiction
Ghouls for schools
Joanna Carey on the winners of our competition to find the perfect ghost story.