The noisy poet

Andrew Motion searches for new insights into the life of an eminent Victorian in Iain Finlayson's Browning

A man in two minds

Deirdre Bair's diligent biography of Carl Jung reveals his divided personality, but the more we know about him the less real he becomes, says Adam Phillips

Haw-Haw, jaw jaw, war war

Hywel Williams assesses Germany Calling, Mary Kenny's biography of the Irish rebel and Nazi propagandist, William Joyce

Norberto Bobbio

Key Italian political philosopher whose vigilance and clarity helped guide his country's postwar democracy.

In lingua veritas

Victor Klemperer's diaries, The Lesser Evil, are a monument to his profound commitment to language and truth, says Stevie Davies

A perfect match

Hermione Lee enjoys Henrietta Garnett's Anny, a life of Anne Thackeray from a biographer just right for her subject

Four wobbles and a frenzy

Robert Rubin and Jacob Weisberg's In an Uncertain World persuades Richard Adams that the Clinton administration's greatest asset was its chief economist

Survival strategy

Tibor Fischer says Hungary's finest contribution to Holocaust writing, Nine Suitcases by Béla Zsolt, is not a book for the squeamish

The vision thing

Liz Jobey on Diane Arbus: Revelations by Elisabeth Sussman, Doon Arbus et al, an exhaustively researched memoir of a photographer who still divides opinion

Ted, Sylvia and me

In a uniquely intimate portrait of Sylvia Plath, The Observer's former poetry editor recalls being her confidant and mentor and tells of the strange experience of seeing himself portrayed in the new film of her life. By Al Alvarez.

John Terraine

Controversial military historian who was behind the BBC's series The Great War.

A princely position

Meddler or intellectual? John Crace asks academics if Prince Charles is worth listening to