Tolstoy: A Russian Life Rosamund Bartlett (Profile, £25) The author of two of the world’s greatest literary epics, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy was a man of monumental vision whose influences spread far outside his writing. In this beautiful study, Bartlett paints him as a rebel who wore peasant clothes, fighting against Tsarist autocracy and the Orthodox Church. His was a giant figure across the landscape of imperial Russia, inspiring a philosophy of non-violence, yet to his enemies he was a catalyst for the Russian Revolution.

Oxford author Rosamund Bartlett will talk to university lecturer Julie Curtis about Tolstoy at the Oxford Literary Festival on April 10.

Unbroken Laura Hillebrand (Fourth Estate, £20) Of all the personal stories emerging from the Second World War, the incredible fortitude of Lieutenant Zamperini, a crewman of an American bomber that crashed into the Pacific, stands out as an example of extreme heroism. Surviving on a life raft for 47 days was just a prelude to his vicious treatment in Japanese hands. Hillebrand, the author of Seabiscuit, about the resilient racehorse, condemns in every passage the cruelty and criminality of the Japanese regime in this riveting book on survival.

Men of Color to Arms Elizabeth D. Leonard (Norton, £21) One of the most useful books to come out of the United States in recent years is Leonard’s study of black American soldiers fighting for the Union against the Confederates in the American Civil War. More than 180,000 fought for their citizenship in this giant attritional battle and then engaged in the Indian Wars. Leonard looses a cannon of detail that embraces both Army life and the tests they faced to gain equality.