Hilary Mantel. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher. 4th Estate, 2014.
She's a fine writer when she hits on a worthy subject; the title story is top form. Too much casual cruelty in many of the others.
Alex Danchev. Cezanne: A Life. Pantheon, 2012.
It's often loose and can feel like a collection of anecdotes, but then there's something appropriate about letting incidents hang free as disconnected brushstrokes rather than plaster it all with narrative contour.