Prima Donna: a history, by Rupert Christiansen (Pimlico, £12.50)

This is a marvellous book: witty, erudite, compassionate, an immaculately paced blend of technical detail and wacky anecdote, it examines the myth of the spoilt prima donna and reveals the personal dilemmas which often lay behind a necessarily hard as nails facade.

The cover makes much of the notion that the text has been rewritten to include divas of our day, notably Cecilia Bartoli. In fact the references to Bartoli, Battle, Kiri Te Kanawa et al, while illuminating enough, are crowded into a brief final chapter which is scanty by comparison with, say, the opening section - which delves into the world of the earliest prima donnas, the Italian castrati of the 18th century - or later voyages to New York and Vienna, and a wonderful meandering trip around the labyrinthine emotional paths of Wagner's Germany. If you ever have been - or ever might be - interested in opera, get this book on to your shelves at once.