ALT The best books to read this summer Novels, memoirs and history, paperbacks and hardbacks — plus something for the children. Here's our guide to this summer's finest reads. Use the save button to create your own reading list

ALT Muriel Spark is unusual among modern writers in having had two recent (and first-class) biographies about her. Last year was Frances Wilson's excellent Electric Spark, which focused on her early life and career (it's particularly strong on the awful, groping beta-talents she endured running the Poetry Society). James Bailey's book covers her whole life, or rather nine lives. She was a shape-shifting, slippery character, a woman of many parts (a wartime black propagandist, a high-spending grande dame in Rome, a poverty-stricken single mother, a religious convert). A witty, stylish read that does justice to one of British fiction's most original talents.

ALT Me, behind a microphone in the BBC Radio Scotland studio. I’m holding a copy of my book, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark