Books

Murders for March

Parties and post boxes make beguiling settings for this month’s mysteries

Seductive, scholarly life of the poet-priest

This new biography of John Donne brings the centuries-dead poet to life

Brass and bullshit

Influencer is just another name for snake-oil salesman

Very essence of a Jewish writer’s life

Howard Jacobson stands his life on its head

Writing outside the box

Elena Ferrante’s essay collection is an exploration of the delights and constraints of form

A trip to Heaney country

The fiftieth anniversary of Seamus Heaney’s Wintering Out is a chance to recognise the importance of place to his poetry

Smashed stereotypes or revisionist reveries?

Why judge prohibitionists by their words when we can judge them by their actions?

The unheard lessons of howling feedback

Separating the signal from the noise

A return, a reissue, a brilliant new voice

The best, and the not-so-great, new fiction to read this month

Searching in vain for Hitler’s lethal edict

These two new histories of the holocaust add little to what is already known