Rachel Lichtenstein's On Brick Lane is the fascinating story of east London's most famous street and mirrors changes across the country, says Hilary Spurling.
June 2007
Shelley: poet, predator and prey
The mother and father of all reunions
May 2007
Oh come on, it's time you got a life
A perfect balance
April 2007
Binge-drinking with Tom and Jerry
Ben Wilson's Decency and Disorder is a dazzling work examining the riotous, exuberant and inebriated era immediately before the moralistic Victorian age, says Hilary Spurling.
February 2007
The grandest grande dame
It's been a long journey...
December 2006
Far across the sea lay true égalité
The new world leaves Alexis de Tocqueville sick and giddy in Hugh Brogan's delightful biography, writes Hilary Spurling.
October 2006
A life sucked dry by fiction
Neither Emma nor Florence Hardy could compete with their husband's passion for Bathsheba and Tess, as Claire Tomalin's haunting biography reveals, says Hilary Spurling.
September 2006
All about the birds and the bees
Jenny Uglow's biography of Thomas Bewick highlights how he revolutionised the way the British public looked at nature. Hilary Spurling finds out more.
August 2006
Of empires and dynasties
Hilary Spurling enjoys The High Road to China by Kate Teltscher and Oracle Bones by John Murray, two very different but equally fascinating books that offer compelling insights into China ancient and modern.
July 2006
The apostate poet
A persecuted Catholic revered as a Protestant preacher, a father of 12 who damned sex, John Donne is brought brilliantly to life in John Stubbs's Donne: The Reformed Soul, says Hilary Spurling.
June 2006
Is this the Hole truth?
The courtesan's tale
April 2006
At the court of King Pablo
Elizabeth Cowling's fine study of Roland Penrose's diaries, Visiting Picasso, details a fawning relationship with the 20th-century's greatest painter that borders on the masochistic. It's a cautionary tale, says Hilary Spurling.
October 2005
Sister Jacques-Marie
Obituary: The Dominican nun who sat for Matisse and inspired his final masterpiece.
February 2005
'Matys? Mathis? Qui?'
When Hilary Spurling first visited Matisse's birthplace, the locals either didn't know who he was or called him the village idiot. Now he's their proudest possession