Playing fast and loose
Claudia Renton's Those Wild Wyndhams captures the riches and rage of the famous high-society sisters — Mary, Madeline and my great-grandmother Pamela
Into the valley of death
Another John Williams novel has been republished, this one set in the bleak and rugged American West
An awful warning
David Pilling's Bending Adversity looks at Japan's lost decade and ageing population — the country's resilience may hold a key for the West
Tortured genius
Helen Trinca's Madeleine is a biography on the tortured but talented Australia-born writer Madeleine St John, who deserves to be far better known
A dangerous heroine addiction
In How to Be a Heroine, Samantha Ellis looks at the literary heroines who shaped her life — and finally finds one she can use as her role model
A don delights
One Hundred Letters, a selection of the historian's correspondence, shows he was not only clever and witty, but kindly, wise — and a liberal who disliked conformity
The curiosity in the cabinet
John Biffen's memoir Semi-Detached reveals the Tory politician's struggle with mental illness — and a paranoid, vindictive and megalomaniac Maggie
At Kew
To Occupation Road again, a whole year nearer my own retirement now. The track slopes down past the Record Office…
At home with the Bloomsberries
Above the range in the kitchen at Charleston House is a painted inscription: ‘Grace Higgens worked here for 50 years…
Peak practice
In a small log cabin, just next to the plush ski resorts, the German exile Kirchner produced extraordinarily powerful works of art
Collecting compulsion
My dependency means my CD collection has doubled, while my number of friends has halved — luckily, there's a fix for this
History man
Plus: My dear friend T.G. Rosenthal helped in Lowry's breakthrough — and he will be remembered fondly
Long division
Plus: Newcomer Gareth Cadwallader's Cleopatra shows he deserves another shot — and a determined editor
Putney boy come good
Mike Poulton's stage adaptations of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies are a triumph — but he needs to build sympathy for the bodies in Bodies
Fortune’s fool
Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street will set the cat among the pigeons as a number of films do.…
Losing the plot
Soon, we will demand that every programme give us a twist every two ticks — just try to sit through the plodding Hostages
Uncomfortable truths
The media witch-hunt of Christopher Jeffries reminds us that in the rush to be first with information, compromises are being made
Dress to impress
Unless you made your own outfits, were into the deviant or 'Glam Fetish', you might not have stood a chance
Real life
They seem to be working together — although I think it's the iPhone that is the truly malevolent force
Long life
The French like dash and elegance in their leaders — they don't mind the mistress as much as the moped
Wild life
My challenge has always been to recapture the adrenalin of riding on an Ethiopian tank — so I'm off to Mogadishu to set up fast-food outlets
Bridge
Do you ever watch the greats playing bridge? And if you do, are you sometimes baffled, because instead of playing…
