Reviews I have written recently, appearing in the Sunday Times.

Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual by Michael Scammell - The most spectacular aspect of Arthur Koestler was his sex life, and the main problem it poses is how he found time for it... (February 7, 2010)

The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain Was Poisoned at Home, Work and Play by James C Whorton - There must always be a fair number of wives who feel like killing their husbands, but in Britain in the 1840s an unusually high proportion actually did it. Most of them (or most of those who were detected) were lower class, and their favourite method was poisoning with arsenic... (January 24, 2010 )

On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears by Stephen T Asma - Where do monsters come from? How did they first lurch and shamble into the human brain? Are monsters still around? Is there one near you? Stephen  T   Asma’s cultural history attacks these questions with sometimes gruesome relish.... (January 10, 2010 )

Lost London 1870-1945: English Heritage by Philip Davies - We think of cities as solid, dependable things, fixed points, enduring landmarks. In reality, though, they are fluid, and as transient as a breath... (December 20, 2009)

A Crisis of Brilliance:Five Young British Artists and the Great War by David Boyd Haycock - The problems young artists face are not much written about since, generally speaking, they matter only to young artists. ... (December 13, 2009)

The English Opium Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey by Robert Morrison - Thomas De Quincey is famous for writing the first personal account of drug addiction, which he published in 1821 as Confessions of an ­English Opium-Eater. He also deserves to be recognised as Britain’s first fully documented problem teenager... (November 22, 2009)

The Letters of TS Eliot: Volume 1: 1898-1922/Volume 2: 1923-1925 ed Valerie Eliot and Hugh Haughton - The first volume of TS Eliot’s letters, edited by his widow Valerie, came out in 1988. As the years passed, hopes of seeing another instalment gradually faded, especially among the not-so-young. But Valerie Eliot and Hugh Haughton have confounded the doubters. (November 8, 2009)

Herge: The Man Who Created Tintin by Pierre Assouline trans Charles Ruas - The Tintin books provide an alternative history of the 20th century, from the Russian revolution through to the space age, in which the innocent never get hurt. A 15-year-old boy and his talking dog emerge unscathed from a relentless sequence of plots, tyrannies, explosions and natural disasters. What kind of man did it take to create this joyful fantasy? (October 25, 2009 )

The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness and the Story of Britain’s Greatest Comedian by Andrew McConnell Stott - Joseph Grimaldi revolutionised clowning as surely as David Garrick (who hated clowns) revolutionised Shakespearian acting. He invented clown make-up as we know it today... (October 11, 2009 )