La Divina, by Anne Edwards (Pan, £5.99 in UK)

Opera buffs won't need any translation of the title, and this novelisation of the life of Maria Callas opens with a formidable tantrum - screaming, shouting, fainting, smashing of vinyl, the works. Alas, the book as a whole is more redolent of operetta than of opera. As it proceeds the emotional temperature cools considerably, the storyline shrinks to a somewhat tedious focus on the soprano's affair with Aristotle Onassis - sorry, a Greek millionaire - and by the time you're trudging through Act IV you find yourself wishing that the fat lady would just get on with it so everybody could go home.