Surreal Lives: the Surrealists 1917-1945 by Ruth Brandon (Papermac, £12 in UK)

The Surrealists deliberately cultivated oddity and antinomianism, but in many cases this attitude was superfluous. A lot of them were in fact naturally extreme, kinky and over the top, and so did not need to prove themselves to be - well, surreal. If Dadaism and other kindred movements are included, it was a multi-national phenomenon, but its real capital was Paris, where rebellious French intellectuals inculcated from childhood with Cartesian rationalism made a cult of standing reason inside out and on its head. Andre Breton, Dali and the odious Bunuel, Max Ernst, Eluard, Louis Aragon may not have all been geniuses, but they were undeniably "personalities." In such company, with its wild mixture of radical chic and genuine loopiness, it is hard to be dull and Ruth Brandon has made the best of it all.