Biography
Lean and mean: Mick Jagger was always a tightwad
His parsimony included replacing chocolate biscuits with plain ones at recording sessions and paying a derisory £50 for what became known as ‘the most famous logo in the history of pop music’
A portrait of the fin de siècle in all its morbid decadence
Matthew Sturgis leads us into a sultry, incense-laden world where Death itself nurses a sinister preference for the young
J.G. Ballard’s surreal fiction continues to resonate through the century
Christopher Priest’s sympathetic biography, completed by his wife after his premature death, will enlighten new readers and maintain Ballard’s reputation
A deadly imitation game: the fate of the British teenager who posed as a Russian oligarch’s son
Patrick Radden Keefe investigates the mystery of Zac Brettler’s fall from the balcony of a luxury riverside apartment into the Thames one November night in 2019
Defiantly creative to the end: the transgressive Dorothea Tanning
Born in Illinois in 1910 in the middle of a hurricane, the experimental Surrealist became the model of the fiercely independent artist
How the paralysed Franz Rosenzweig continued to translate the Bible
After being struck down by a neurodegenerative disease at the age of 36, the inspirational scholar pursued his biblical project with the twitch of one thumb
Riddled with contradictions: the enigma of Jan Morris
The self-made woman remained obstinately masculine; the admirer of imperialism was a passionate Welsh nationalist; and the travel writer could be both superficial and profound
James Baldwin – dogged by painful uncertainties throughout life
Often snared in emotional turmoil, he never knew who his father was, and resisted being pigeonholed on questions of race, blame and responsibility
Why Hitler’s suave architect escaped the noose at Nuremberg
Albert Speer was treated leniently because he was softly-spoken, well-dressed and ‘much the most appealing’ of all the defendants, according to Telford Taylor, one of the prosecutors
W.H. Auden’s virtuosity masked careful craftsmanship
Poetry came so easily to Auden that at times he had consciously to ‘keep the diction and rhythm within a hairsbreadth of prose without becoming it’
How Ulysses horrified the stuffed shirts of New York’s literary establishment
The magazine editor Margaret C. Anderson’s spirited attempts to introduce Joyce’s masterpiece to 1920s America resulted in a court case and heavy fine for disseminating obscenity
Rupert Murdoch’s warped vision of family
The absentee father, who always put his media empire first, enjoyed playing his children off against one another – with crippling consequences
Leonardo Sciascia and the reshaping of the detective novel
Crimes go unpunished while injustice is upheld and truth perverted. Such is the Mafia reality, according to the saturnine Sciascia
The turbulent life of the Marquis de Morès – the 19th-century aristocrat turned populist thug
Soldier, duelist and frontier ranchman, the anti-Semitic adventurer brought cowboy-style politics to the streets of Paris as the Third Republic lurched from one crisis to another
How ‘bad’ does a mother have to be to lose custody of her children?
In a bitter dispute in the family court, Lara Feigel is informed that her ‘wilful’ insistence on writing books is a clear indication that she is not putting her children first
The madness of Prince Rogers Nelson
The pop star’s extensive entourage were expected to be on call 24/7, responding to his every whim while turning a blind eye to the French farce of his love life
What is it about Bob Dylan that sends writers mad?
Though a witness to many seminal Dylan moments, Ron Rosenbaum has produced what feels like a long voice-note after the pub, full of bluster, conspiracy and giddy conjecture
The diminutive dictator who ruled Spain with an iron fist
Fifty years after Franco’s death, Giles Tremlett assesses the generalisimo’s bloodstained legacy
Jessica was the only Mitford worth taking seriously
But her unfailing humour does help lighten a solid new biography that focuses on her tireless campaign for social justice
How the teenage Carole King struck gold
Aged 18, she wrote ‘Will You (Still) Love Me Tomorrow’ which reached No 1 in the US – and the hits kept coming
The inspiration for David Lynch’s mysterious, disquieting world
A bizarre experience in the filmmaker’s adolescence involving a woman’s escape from domestic violence seems to have left an indelible mark
Unhappy band of brothers: the Beach Boys’ story
The quintessential Californian band who sang of sun, sand and surfing had, like the Golden State itself, a dark side as well as light
Paul Poiret and the fickleness of fashion
The master couturier, once celebrated by le tout Paris, found himself by the 1920s debt-ridden and eclipsed by the likes of Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli
The lonely passions of Katherine Mansfield
Mansfield’s early infatuations led to many catastrophic rejections – and even in their brief marriage, her husband John Middleton Murry would treat her with wounding indifference
The dangerous charm of Peter Matthiessen
The philandering author of the sublime The Snow Leopard spent a lifetime globe-hopping from the Amazonian jungle to the Siberian tundra at great cost to family life
