Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age by Kurt W Beyer
By PD SmithGrace Hopper, who became a "coder" (or programmer) in the 1940s, was one of the great pioneers of the computer age. In 1934 she had been the first woman in Yale's 233-year history to graduate with a doctorate in maths. After Pearl Harbor, sh...
Hitler and the Nazi Cult of Celebrity by Michael Munn
A ludicrous study of Hitler recasts the Führer as a precursor of Simon CowellMichael Munn has spent his life – at least as he implausibly tells it – schmoozing with the beautiful and the damned. He bonded with Steve McQueen while riding pillion on...
The Man Within My Head by Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer's meditation on the great influences of his life is a book that deserves to be lovedThe last acknowledgement at the end of Pico Iyer's 10th book is to the man within his head, "to the author who, almost in spite of himself, taught me and so m...
Just Send Me Word by Orlando Figes – review
Drawing on a cache of smuggled love letters, Orlando Figes movingly charts a romance that blossomed in the unlikliest circumstances"Death solves all problems," declared Joseph Stalin, adding with his customary brutality: "No man, no problem." Anyone fo...
David Cameron’s ‘chillaxing’ hobbies revealed in new biography
Prime minister spends weekends playing with a tennis machine called 'the Clegger' and singing karaoke, according to bookIf "chillaxing" was an Olympic sport then David Cameron, would win a gold medal, according to a new biography of the prime minister....
The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst
Alan Hollinghurst's elegant and erudite novel about the life and legacy of a gay war poet shows how truth is compromised by the erasures of remembrance and historyIt is seven years since Alan Hollinghurst won the 2004 Booker prize for The Line of Beaut...
Frank by James Kaplan – review
By Victoria SegalPrefaced by a quotation from Francis Bacon ("There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion"), Kaplan's account of Frank Sinatra's well-documented first four decades is an attempt to bring the singer to l...
Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace by Kate Summerscale
Kate Summerscale's follow-up to The Suspicions of Mr Whicher is another masterful retelling of a true Victorian scandalWhen I was at university in the late 80s, the influence of The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's milestone femi...
Digested read
Faber & Faber, £18.99Sitting on the aft deck of his capacious yacht Slipstream, surrounded by high-octane women and Paul McKenna, Simon Cowell chain-smoked his favourite brand of Kool cigarettes while a colonic specialist bleached his anus. "OK," he s...
Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell by Tom Bower – review
Bonks, Botox and bitching give Cowell's life story the X factor. And then the ennui sets in…What's left to say about this "unauthorised" (sort of), hilarious (definitely) book except: how could anyone be angry or upset about it? Least of all Simon Co...
… or Boris?
People underestimate Boris Johnson at their perilI once had to explain on American television the difference between the mayor of London and the lord mayor of London. The lord mayor, I explained, was mayor of the City of London, whereas the mayor of Lo...
The secret diary of Barack Obama’s ex-girlfriend | Oliver Burkeman