Margate

On the eve of a major retrospective at Tate Modern comes this portrait of Tracey Emin as a painter, told largely in her own words. It traces a remarkable trajectory, from gobby Margate teenager to one of the UK’s most respected and celebrated artists, and a Dame of the British Empire. At its heart is a series of conversations with Martin Gayford, a critic with a deep engagement with the nature of painting and insights gleaned from close friendships with 20th-century giants, Lucian Freud and David Hockney among them. It is a book full of heart – frank and confessional – and presents Emin at the zenith of her powers,

Should you search for someone who has disappeared seemingly of their own volition? David Whitehouse, the author of novels that scooped the Betty Trask and Jerwood prizes and were shortlisted for the Gordon Burn and CWA Golden Dagger awards, happened upon a real-life mystery. Having his hair cut in Margate, he was told about a woman who had lived in the neighbourhood and vanished. The story came from a resident of the same block as the missing Caroline Lane. Whitehouse’s interest was piqued. This is the background to Saltwater Mansions, the name of the apartment block from which Lane, a feisty (even grumpy) middle-aged woman had seemingly evaporated with no