Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh

Fig Tree, £25

Throughout this definitive biography of the iconic bad boy of ballet, Julie Kavanagh keeps her balance. It is a poised, bravura performance, rich with new material, sustained for 787 pages, mercifully free of the effusions that would have tempted a lesser writer. If she sometimes falls over herself trying to be fair to Nureyev, she cannot be faulted in her analysis of his significance for Western ballet and for the role of the male dancer. From Nurevey's high, dedicated art to his low, opportunistic sexuality, she maintains a calm assurance and authority.

From There to Here: Sixteen True Tales of Immigration to Britain

Penguin, £8.99

There's a line by Robert Frost: “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” The contributors to this diverse collection of immigrant experiences are mostly positive about Britain as the place that took them in and has become, to whatever degree of assimilation, home. The 16 stories have been chosen from the wide-ranging response to a request for “true personal accounts of immigration to Britain”. They are sometimes nostalgic, always moving and also very accomplished — too many of the writers are artists, authors, actors and journalists.

Christy Brown: The Life that Inspired My Left Foot by Georgina Louise Hambleton

Mainstream, £15.99

The clue to this biography, and Hambleton's cue for writing it, is in the subtitle: Christy Brown is now more famous as the subject of the film My Left Foot than as the painter, novelist and poet who inspired it. Brown, who suffered all his life from double athetoid cerebral palsy, and who wrote and painted with his left foot — the only part of his body that he could control — has since become neglected. From unpublished and largely unexamined letters and poems, and through the memories of his friends and family, this great man and his works are now revived.

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