As we know from the stupendous BBC adaptation of Tolstoy's epic novel, War And Peace, the Russians are very good at war, not so pie-hot when it comes to peace. Military parades, manoeuvres and a good scrap are what they like best - and as Simon Sebag Montefiore says in this panoramic study, to Tsar Nicholas II, even World War I, in which Russia fielded more than 1.2 million men, was nothing more than 'a bracing national rite'.
The 20-year-old Guglielmo Marconi wrote in 1894 to the Italian Minister of Post and Telegraphs, Pietro Lacava, to outline his plans for wireless telegraphy and request government funding.
On New Year's Day on a freezing Welsh beach, Isy Suttie decided to surprise her friends by suddenly stripping naked and pelting into the sea.
You might think of it as Eden or Narnia, the golden memory of a childhood picnic or a turquoise-lapped beach fantasy.
As a youngster, model Cindy Crawford always felt self-conscious about the mole near her lip. The football team at school once shouted at her: 'Hey, little Crawford, you have chocolate on your face!'
MUST READS
When Madonna sang her 1984 hit single Material Girl, she identified what would become one of today's most acute afflictions.
YOUNG ADULT
I approached this follow-up with nervously high expectations. I need not have worried.
LITERARY FICTION
Yann Martel's new book consists of three linked stories. The first is set in 1904.
FANTASY
Whimsical and precise, romantic and wickedly witty, this is the great American fantasy novel with knobs on.
The doctor's given me six months... CRIME
The possibility that a woman can be an evil, callous killer is a popular contemporary theme in crime novels.
COMIC
Literally a die-hard smoker, Joe Henry has finally succumbed to cancer.
RETROS
Talk about keeping you on your toes!
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We live in a world of things. The average German owns 10,000 of them, while in 2013, the UK was home to six billion items of clothing. That's roughly 100 per adult, a quarter of which never leave the wardrobe. Only this week, the boss of IKEA said that we may well have hit saturation point or 'peak stuff' - a state of affairs that could be called 'peak curtains'. But where did this craze for things come from? How has it changed the world? And, perhaps most important of all, what does it say about us?
Bernard Buffet committed suicide aged 71 in 1999. In the Fifties and Sixties he was a famous and collectable artist. He developed Parkinson's Disease and could no longer paint.
Who would have thought that a book about a treacherous expanse of freezing, grey-green water, feared by mariners through the centuries, could turn out to be such a delight?
This book contains 52 small steps that will lead you to happiness. Advice columnist Bel Mooney loves the simple suggestions in the book. She thinks that they're practical, useful steps.
Do you ever get your big cultural names a bit muddled up? If so, the good news is that you're not alone. During one wartime lunch, Winston Churchill was introduced to Irving Berlin.
It's no accident that Tom Holland's account of the rise and fall of the Caesars shares a title with one of the most lurid soap operas ever to appear on TV. A follow-up to his bestseller Rubicon.
Meet Rickina and Rocky. These youngsters are two of more than 100 orangutans who have been rehabilitated by International Animal Rescue in Borneo.
Over the centuries, the Loch Ness Monster has been confidently identified by eye-witnesses as being like a giant salamander or conger eel, a big otter or 'a family of otters swimming in a line', a dragon, a black carthorse, a large seal and a squid. Others have described it as an iguana 'that specialised in chewing through divers' breathing equipment', a short-necked crocodile, 'a morbidly obese newt', a mini-submarine, a massive slug and 'an elderly killer whale'. At 263,000 million cubic feet, a mile across and 23 miles from end to end, Loch Ness is the largest body of fresh water in the British Isles. It also, as Gareth Williams explains in his fascinating study, attracts cranks, drunks, publicity-seekers and lunatics like a magnet.
As I read this vast, compendious and glorious volume, I realised that I am a traveller no longer. I'm a person who sits at home and reads about foreign countries.
The authors' objective is to show how the application of basic psychological tenets can not only improve our lives but help us strive to become what they call 'the wisest in the room'.
Britain may not be the culinary backwater it once was but, even in an age of foodies, our ignorance about what we eat remains . Daniel Tapper aims to throw light on how our food is really produced.
This stylish collection of classic clothes is not only nostalgic, it also traces how iconic movies influenced the fashion sense of a generation.
We live in bearded times. The wheel of fashion has turned and suddenly, it seems, British cities are full of young men sporting slicked-back hair, thousands of tattoos and huge W. G. Grace beards.
What are we today? A verminous 64 million, cheerfully heading for 70 million. Total insanity. Tudor London was a market town of 50,000 souls. Would it be a good idea to go back in time?
All this week, Labour MP Simon Danczuk is laying bare how the Establishment, the Liberal Party, the police and even MI5 covered up the industrial-scale child abuse of 29-stone Rochdale MP Cyril Smith. Today, how his victims were ignored and betrayed when they tried to expose their suffering.
In the finale of her unique inside story, Vicky Pryce, the wife of disgraced ex-minister Chris Huhne, describes life at open prison East Sutton Park.
In the second extract from her autobiography, published exclusively in the Mail today, Mary Berry describes the sudden death of the son she doted on, pictured left.
In his compelling new biography, Gary Morecambe talks about his father's relationship with Ernie Wise and how he continued to make them laugh even up until the end.
The star was accused of being a communist after allegedly telling banquet guests 'the Russian purges' were a 'wonderful thing'.
Jerry and Lucian had never quite bonded. While sitting for him she gave him cashmere jerseys, which he loathed. But worse, she had a habit of being late.
In an extract from his explosive memoirs, Power Trip, Damian McBride reveals how the former Chancellor survived by the skin of his teeth after credit crunch bungle.
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