1. The Verneys, Adrian Tinniswood
A biography of a 17th-century family, based on an archive of private papers, which illuminates life during the English Civil War; it reads like a novel and bursts with detail.
Jonathan Cape, £25
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2. The Lodger, Charles Nicholl
Based on a deposition Shakespeare made to a small claims court, The Lodger is an exercise in literary detection spun out from the only verbatim bit of The Bard we have.
Allen Lane, £20
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3. Ezra Pound Vol One, A David Moody
There are two more volumes of this life of Pound, the hugely important modernist poet. This first volume documents his early years and it reveals how self-promoting he was.
Oxford University Press, £25
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4. Descents of Memory, Morine Krissdottir
Cowper Powys is a writer’s writer and quite crazy; he used to tap his head against trees as a form of psychiatry. Krissdottir re-introduces this neglected genius to modern readers.
Duckworth & Co, £20
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5. Rudolf Nureyev, Julie Kavanagh
Nureyev is a fascinating character and this biography is not only vivid, well-written and full of detail, there is also a lot of new material here and that makes it an important book.
Fig Tree, £25
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6. Jennie Churchill, Anne Sebba
Probably best known for being a bad mother to Winston Churchill, Jennie Churchill was an extraordinary woman. By the age of 46 she was thought to have slept with 200 men.
John Murray, £25
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7. God’s Architect, Rosemary Hill
Pugin had an eventful life; by 21 he had been shipwrecked, bankrupted and widowed. He was to transform British architecture with a gothic style that dominated the Victorian age.
Allen Lane, £30
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8. Harold Robbins, Andrew Wilson
Robbins pretty much invented the bonkbuster. A short, squat filing clerk from a respectable Jewish family, he made an absolute fortune by writing smutty potboilers.
Bloomsbury, £16.99
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9. Young Stalin, Simon Sebag Montefiore
A lot of fuss has been made about this very well-written book, and I think it’s deserved. The author uncovered a lot of new and important material in the Georgian archives.
Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £25
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10. The Hottentot Venus, Rachel Holmes
An intriguing story about a South African slavewoman called Saartjie Baartman with an unusually large bottom that she exhibited in London. This moving book explores her life.
Bloomsbury, £14.99
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17 January 2008, Chosen by Philip Womac, Assistant Editor of The Literary Review
