In October 1960, James Baldwin diagnosed the trouble with American society as 'a failure of the masculine sensibility.' This is a study of the relationship of Tennessee Williams, Carson McCu... read more
A fascinating look at the way 29 European internal borders were made and have shifted; while some of these reflect the faultlines of old horrors, they also offer new hope. Perceptive and ext... read more
A deliciously-written debut novel, in which a harried civil servant is assigned to help a Victorian time-traveller adjust to the C21st. By turns a romance, a thriller and an acid critique of... read more
In this debut novel by a fine poet, a young woman's table-waiting, mould-spraying life of urban precariousness is disrupted by a glamorous stranger with a shared enemy.
The author went to Venice in 1957, aged 25, to have fun for a season among the rich and glam. Written with 67 years' hindsight, this memoir is a vivid evocation of a vanished era.
A scrapbook becomes a twisty Ariadne's thread, leading its compiler into a world of art, vast wealth and murder. Sharp, with more than a touch of black humour.
The memoirs of Henry 'Bunter' Somerset - rock singer and songwriter, formerly the Marquess of Worcester, now the 17th Duke of Beaufort and the owner of Badminton House.
An account of Edward VIII that looks at early drafts of the abdicated King's own writings, and counterbalances the recent tabloid view of him as a traitor.
A biography of the city founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, once the largest city in the world and for a thousand years the capital of Egypt. Looks at the modern period too.
A hotter, drier earth means a dustier earth. Owens frames these microparticles as the insidious biproduct of industrialism, whose immense repercussions will be felt ever more powerfully in ... read more
Published last year in the US, this account of the rich in mid-C20th New York, and Capote's multiple betrayals of friendships, is both fascinating and shocking.
Borman's careful research shows that Anne's tragedy, intellect and family had a profound influence on Elizabeth throughout her life. A dazzling turn of the Tudor prism.
An accomplished thriller that connects an Iraqi former interpreter with a body on a beach and a vastly lucrative defence contract: Powers, author of the brilliant The Yellow Birds, is a vete... read more