Louis-Ferdinand Céline was a flawed man, but he should be allowed to be condemned by his words

How the facts of Hannah Arendt’s life read like fiction

Robert Maxwell’s last two days are covered in great detail in this new book

Anne Sebba’s book on Ethel Rosenberg is a towering memorial

Blake Bailey has become the latest figure to allegedly fall foul of the uncompromising moral standards of American publishing

Christopher Silvester reveals how this biography of Robert Maxwell is a skilfully constructed page-turner

W. Sydney Robinson, the historian’s latest biographer, discovered that his subject was without scruple in matters of the heart

Lincoln Allison is moved by a cache of his father’s wartime love letters and what they reveal about conflict, his parents’ relationship — and a huge generational chasm

Nigel Jones, a chastened practitioner of writing biographies, warns that writing someone’s life can be a dangerous venture

Highsmith was a great writer, with a moral vision bracing enough to clarify the terrors of the twentieth century