Not all memoirists are keen to share their life stories. For Margaret Atwood, an author who has sold more than 40m books, the idea of writing about herself seemed “Dead boring. Who wants to read about someone sitting at a desk messing up blank sheets of paper?”

After reading​ Geoff Browell and Eileen Chanin’s concise history of the Strand, you will never walk down that street again without thinking of the hippopotami that wallowed in a primeval swamp at the Trafalgar Square end.

In 1755, Samuel Johnson (this was before his honorary doctorates) defined the herring as ‘a small sea-fish’, and that was it. By contrast, Graeme Rigby has spent 25 obsessive years documenting the cultural and economic importance of this creature.

Unseen pictures that’ll change the way you see the past: These rare photos from the Mail’s archive show 20th century Britain at its vibrant, scandalous and joyful best – from show girls to ‘biker gangs’

A lot of what, and who, we think we are as individuals and social beings is concentrated in our hands. When teaching the rhetorical trope of synecdoche to undergraduates, I always use the expression ‘give me a hand’ to illustrate the difference between figurative language and simple truth-telling.

How can we live in a meaningless world? Is there any hope of happiness, when our existence is fundamentally absurd and we must succumb to ‘revolting death’? Should we even bother with life, or just abandon the quest?

Jean-Paul Marat lives in cultural memory as a beautiful corpse, immortalised by Jacques-Louis David, who has him clutching a note pleading for the aid of ‘The People’s Friend’ (the note was in fact a treacherous assassin’s lure).

On 16 May 1968, Ivy Hodge got up to make an early morning cuppa. She lived alone at flat 90 on the eighteenth floor of Ronan Point, a brand-new tower block built for Newham Council at Canning Town in the east London Docklands.

On 16 May 1968, Ivy Hodge got up to make an early morning cuppa. She lived alone at flat 90 on the eighteenth floor of Ronan Point, a brand-new tower block built for Newham Council at Canning Town in the east London Docklands.

Before he ever thought of designing a building, Sir John Vanbrugh was a successful playwright – a man of the theatre through and through. He personifies Restoration drama. His plays are racy, subversive, witty, fast and furious.