Better remembered now as Vanessa Bell's husband, CB's 1914 'Art' was a ground-breaking re-evaluation that stood at the centre of early C20th art. This fine biography reclaims his significanc... read more
This is not the Alexandria in the Nile Delta, but rather Alexandria 'Beneath the Mountains', in Afghanistan, discovered by a wandering scholar and archaeologist called Charles Masson in 1833... read more
A fascinating account of the group of queer young MPs who visited Berlin in the 1930s and spoke out against Hitler. Dubbed 'the glamour boys' by Chamberlain, their warnings were ignored and ... read more
Translated from the Italian, this biography marks the 700th anniversary of Dante's death. It brings to life the context in which he wrote. (Barbero's book on Waterloo was excellent.)
The title is part of her 1947 New Year's Eve toast. Openly gay, Highsmith was famously beastly to lovers and friends. This new biography traces connections between her complex character and ... read more
A group biography of five women at Oxford in the early C20th who pioneered the study of remote communities in Siberia, Egypt, New Mexico and Easter Island. The women were Katherine Routledge... read more
FSS is an excellent and varied writer. In this new book, she looks at her father's life through the papers in a suitcase revealing how he was exiled from Romania during the war, to Turkey th... read more
Demick has previously won the Samuel Johnson prize and was short-listed for a Pulitzer. Her account of the modern Tibetan experience is unequalled. The town she writes about is Ngaba, in eas... read more
A curator of fashion at the V&A for most of her working life, CW uses her experience and sensitivity to clothes to explore how, in her own family's life, the secrets of clothes measure out t... read more
Thirteen essays by the Northcliffe Professor of English at UCL. An entertaining guide that looks at Dickens's choice of names, use of outrageous coincidence, and why he works best when read ... read more
The fascinating story of a language known as 'Rotwelsch', associated with vagabonds - linked to Yiddish and Romani - that the author learned from his father and uncle. His grandfather, a Naz... read more
The author's father was an American soldier who fell in love with a Japanese girl on the devastated island. This affecting book probes her own complex feeling and the attitudes among which s... read more
A selection of Milne's essays from 1910-1952: lively, entertaining glimpses into a lost world of errant hats, dodgy plumbing, cheap cigars, loony maids, pacifism, etc.
A delightful extended riff on books and reading from a man with various pseudonyms (Jennie Walker, Jack Robinson...). Its subtitle is 'A book about books, mostly. And bonfires, cliches, dyst... read more