Groucho: the Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx by Stefan Kanfer (Penguin, £7.99 in UK).

Groucho Marx was not like his brothers, who were sociable, lively men and fitted in everywhere they went, great party men and entertainers. Instead, he was rather a loner, pessimistic, edgy, cynical, an Odd Man Out born with the talent of making others laugh yet innately unhappy. Trained in the tough school of American vaudeville, he became the leading man in one of the great comic teams in history, yet remained (or so it seems) largely at odds with himself and the world. Though he was a very rich man he was plagued to the end by fear of dying in poverty, while his marriages and liaisons, or at least the later ones, were usually to young women who too obviously were after his fame and wealth. Hardly surprising, in itself - after all, most of the great comics have been inwardly sad men. This life is readable but on the long side, especially in its account of Groucho's sad last years.