The spark for this remarkable memoir was a scribbled list of paintings that belonged to the Parisian author's great-grandparents - Degas, Renoir, Monet, Tiepolo etc - of which she knew nothi... read more
The pitfalls of cultural fantasies of the north: this cultural history, rich with travellers' tales and legends, is entertaining but also disturbing as myth, reality and politics rub uncomfo... read more
Manon Gropius (1916-1935) was the daughter of Walter and Alma. Her attempts to free herself from maternal expectations and the recurrent image of herself in her stepfather's novels are movin... read more
Jansson's temptation on a winter day, skate with samphire and gooseberries on a summer's one... A few well-considered, simple but richly pleasing recipes for each season. Brown butter, gremo... read more
The international roots of modern science - Arab and Persian mathematical texts, Indian observatories, a C17th African botanist, a C19th Japanese who first described the structure of an atom... read more
Our use of birds is well-known - feathers for hats as well as for nests, birds deified, personified, caged, used for food and for hunting. Less well know is how birds interact with us. (Not ... read more
We heard about Molotov's library in Rachel Polonsky's superb Molotov's Magic Lantern (£12.99). Now we have a portrait of Stalin through the books he read - and he was an avid reader all his... read more
Argues that the abolition of the slave trade in Britain owed more to a deep cultural shift - one that valued the idea of individual freedom - than it did to the actions of particular indi... read more
Founded by mavericks in 1922, it evolved through the war, the invention of television and subsequent massive cultural changes. Whatever its problems, it is an extraordinary institution, and ... read more
From Byzantium to England, the Normans achieved an extraordinary ascendancy in the C11th. This study draws particular attention to dynastic relations and to the role of women in what has hit... read more
A fascinating examination of how the prevailing causes of death have changed through history. It is a story of growing medical knowledge and social organisation, and is refreshingly optimist... read more
From the Bible to Simon Schama, a huge investigation of how the writing of history influences the record of human experience, and therefore its development.
The legendary Russian pianist, friend of Pasternak and other greats, who fell from grace to live precariously on the fringes of Soviet society. EW is the author of fine biographies of Shosta... read more
A revisionist account by the distinguished historian, which argues that Magellan was less of a hero and more of a treacherous, irresponsible, tyrannical adventurer.
Howard (1907-1987) served as an intelligence officer in WW2 throughout the Italian campaign. He married Lelia Caetani of Ninfa, where Bassani wrote a large part of The Garden of the Finzi Co... read more
Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Iris Murdoch & Philippa Foot: they got to know one another as Oxford students during WW2, and went on to have huge influence on subsequent decades.
Cairo's Old City is itself a protagonist in this magnificent saga of the Al-Jawad family and its fearsome patriarch, from 1917 to late in WW2. the Nobel laureate's masterpiece is also availa... read more
Gleaming with finds from recent excavations, this accompanies the Fitzwilliam's splendid exhibition of artefacts of the Saka people - ornate metalwork of people and animals, real and imagina... read more
The first translation by a woman, using Arabic and French sources, with detailed notes and commentary. Beautifully illustrated with Arab and Persian works of art as well as many drawn from p... read more
100 recipes, 100 photographs: more than a traditional cookbook, this celebrates Lee Miller's polymathic approach to life - surrealist, photographer, model, cook, war correspondent... The aut... read more