From Lonely Hearts columns in newspapers, which first appeared in 1786, to the aristocratic cattle market of the London season, to today's instantaneous Tinder 'likes' and 'dislikes', which may be followed up, with luck, by an assignation in Nando's, 'the UK's most popular venue for a first date', people have always been keen to pair off.
At Auschwitz concentration camp near Krakow in Poland, now a museum and memorial, the corridors are lined with thousands of photographs taken by the SS guards of each inmate on arrival.
Chris Paling discovered reading is often the last thing on visitors' minds in a library. .A lot of people wander through its doors simply seeking a refuge from the tides of life outside.
As well as being one of the coldest places on earth, the Arctic is also one of the most dramatic and beautiful. So why not embrace our winter weather by leafing through this stunning book?
On the morning of the World Cup final, Bobby Charlton and Ray Wilson went shopping in Golders Green for new suits. Charlton was nearly run over while crossing the road to go into Cecil Gee.
MUST READS
Paul died in 2015, aged 37, but his best-selling memoir is far more than a beautifully written account of a life cut cruelly short: it is a meditation on living well. It is not about how long but how well we live.
LITERARY FICTION
Auster's exploration of the arbitrariness of individual fate and of how a minor tweak in a story can provoke a major outcome, is, for all its great length, always engaging and readable.
THRILLERS
This articulate thriller, with its central mystery of an unsolved murder in Princeton 25 years ago, is told from a series of perspectives, provoking the reader to ask questions.
YOUNG FICTION
After the deserved success of his debut, Time Travelling With A Hamster, Ross Welford returns with the notoriously difficult second book...
RETRO READS
If it's laughter you're after - it's 1941, wartime Britain, in a Thames town backwater boarding house. Events lead to a 'feminine feud unparalleled in boarding house history'.
SHORT STORIES
You cannot help feeling that Tessa Hadley is just one book away from becoming a household name.
HISTORICAL
It's 1936: The Nazis occupy the Rhineland, Stalin's Great Terror is under way, Spain is divided by civil war and, besotted by Mrs Simpson, Edward VIII threatens to abdicate.
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William Gladstone (bottom right), the former Liberal Prime Minister, may have been a man of many parts, but a left forefinger wasn't one of them. He lost it in a shooting accident when he was a young man. But look at any portrait of Gladstone and you'll see he has a full set of ten fingers. Darwin (top right), it turns out, had something to hide: a nasty case of eczema. Pictured (left), a Victorian woman displaying the very tight corset fashion of the day.
Jam-packed with charm, it traces the inception of commercial air travel right through to the modern day. Expect elegant air hostesses, vivid vintage advertising and a lot about aeroplanes.
In World War I, Mary Lindell chose to be a Red Cross nurse in a military field hospital in France. When Hitler's armies invaded in 1940, she helped repatriate trapped British soldiers.
Mark Stevenson has toured the world meeting people who refuse to take 'status quo' for an answer. In India, he witnesses cows listening to classical music (it's been proven to relax them).
For all of us emerging into 2017 from our cocoon of indoorsy warmth, this story of how an ordinary person conquers her fear should be read by all who suffer life-fright.
Early in the run of the original 1957 Broadway production of West Side Story, composer Leonard Bernstein was perplexed to learn that the hit musical was 20 minutes shorter than it should have been.
Considering 2016 was the year Brits embraced the cosy Danish concept of hygge, then 2017 may be the year in which we tire of candles and adopt the rougher and readier Dutch version: gezelligheid.
Dive into the mind that co-founded one of the world's largest advertising agencies. Holy Cow! is a collection of Charles Saatchi's favourite images and articles from his popular column.
This stylish book contains candid snapshots from the film sets of Roman Holiday, Sabrina and Funny Face, as well as stills from fashion shoots by top photographers.
The club was the brainchild of Walter Besant, who was knighted in 1895 for his philanthropic work on behalf of free public libraries.
Believe it or not, Catherine Howard (on the left), Henry VIII's fifth wife, the one beheaded for having a bit on the side, was a victim of Brexit, a piece of collateral damage. Not, I hasten to add, our present situation vis a vis Brussels (though there are parallels) but the original Brexit, the 16th-century version when England raised two fingers to the over-mighty power of a centralised European authority - the Roman Catholic church in the Vatican - and opted to go it alone.
The Map and the Clock, edited by Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke, is a desert island book you'd never tire of - and (at less than 3p per page) stupendous value.
The Daily Mail has put together a fiendish quiz for all book fanatics. Question range from notable memoirs to unusual nouns and their even more unusual meanings.
Colours have been crucial to humans throughout history, governing everything from our body clocks to the names of our countries, writes Kassia St Clair.
Christopher Somerville (pictured with his father as a child) starts his journey to understand his late dad in Gloucestershire where he grew up - his sister is former newsreader Julia Somerville.
These picture books are a sumptuous feast for the eyes. They include the British Wildlife Photography Awards and Chanel Catwalk. They can be purchased from the Mail Book Shop.
Michelle Slatalla is a former columnist for the New York Times and the editor-in-chief of the Gardenista website. Her 'definitive guide to outdoor spaces' begins with a 'gardenista manifesto'.
All this week, Labour MP Simon Danczuk is laying bare how the Establishment, the Liberal Party, the police and even MI5 covered up the industrial-scale child abuse of 29-stone Rochdale MP Cyril Smith. Today, how his victims were ignored and betrayed when they tried to expose their suffering.
In the finale of her unique inside story, Vicky Pryce, the wife of disgraced ex-minister Chris Huhne, describes life at open prison East Sutton Park.
In the second extract from her autobiography, published exclusively in the Mail today, Mary Berry describes the sudden death of the son she doted on, pictured left.
In his compelling new biography, Gary Morecambe talks about his father's relationship with Ernie Wise and how he continued to make them laugh even up until the end.
After meeting Oona O'Neill when she was just 17 years old, the star was accused of being a communist, after allegedly telling guests at a banquet 'the Russian purges' were a 'wonderful thing'.
Jerry and Lucian had never quite bonded. While sitting for him she gave him cashmere jerseys, which he loathed. But worse, she had a habit of being late.
In an extract from his explosive memoirs, Power Trip, Damian McBride reveals how the former Chancellor survived by the skin of his teeth after credit crunch bungle.
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