Sport
Day of the Match
Scott Murray and Rowan Walker
This beautifully-bound compendium takes a football story for each day of the year. Murray and Walker defy banishment to anorak-city by offering an erudite, international and mirthful take on the fascinating, controversial and bizarre yarns that have afflicted and entertained such an outwardly simple sport, including a phantom penalty shoot-out, naked player protests and, of course, Eric Cantona’s crude kung-fu.

Fiction
American Adulterer
Jed Mercurio
Although based on the truth, Jed Mercurio’s latest is an imaginary behind-the-scenes exposé of JFK’s White House that uncovers how a randy commander-in-chief’s numerous liaisons impacted on the business of being the world’s most powerful man. A former TV scriptwriter, Mercurio keeps the plot ticking along in a way that would translate well to the big screen; it’s just a shame history spoiled the ending.

Nature/travel
A Single Swallow
Horatio Clare
Irresistibly funny and properly informative, Horatio Clare’s travelogue about bird-migration isn’t designed for bird-nerds. On the journey following his beloved barn swallow for nearly 10,000km, from South Africa’s Western Cape across two continents and back to Clare’s native Wales, pygmies, witch-doctors, spies and travellers all cross his path.

Art
The Ultimate Trophy: How the Impressionist Painting Conquered the World
Philip Hook
Sotheby’s specialist Philip Hook investigates the world’s ongoing mania for Impressionism in this witty and dense tome. Going beyond a simple rehash of well-documented art history, Hook’s insight is both academic and anecdotal, from describing buyers hissing at Degas’s L’Absinthe on the Christie’s saleroom floor in 1892, to the more recent story of a rich Middle Eastern buyer who thought he was the victim of a practical joke when being flogged a $7m Monet.

Travel
Viva South America!
Oliver Balch
Oliver Balch’s refreshing romp around South America takes you all over the Andes and even deep down under them, popping into the houses of peasants and presidents along the way. It’s a gentle journey that gives you all the unique flavour – and the grit – of each individual country.

Contemporary
The Kaleidoscopic Eye: Thyssen-Bornemisza
Art Contemporary Collection
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 4 April – 5 July 2009
Joining forces with T-B A21 – the Viennese contemporary art foundation set up by Francesca von Habsburg in 2001 – Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum hosts a selection of works commissioned and collected by the foundation artists, such as Carsten Holler, Cerith Wyn Evans, Jim Lambie and Jeppe Hein, all dealing with the reliability, or otherwise, of human perception.

Modern
Alexander Calder: Les Années Parisiennes
Pompidou Centre, Paris, 18 March – 20 July 2009
Documenting the seven years that American artist Calder spent in Paris, this show investigates how he was influenced by his adopted home and the artists he mixed with, including Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian and Man Ray. The show features Calder’s Circus – a circus act played out by moving wire models – and is the first time the work has left the Whitney Museum in New York since the artist’s death in 1976.

Rock
Elvis Perkins
In Dearland
What a hot talent Elvis Perkins has slowly simmered to become. A sparse and heartfelt debut and EPs of ever-increasing ambition have inspired a second album of warm, rootsy, rock and blues tied to timeless arrangements that owe their groove to relaxed reggae and New Orleans spirituals. Perkins lives up to his Christian name, but this lovely new outing is more like a Californian Clash; a West Coast way to the world.

Schiz-rock
(Peter, Bjorn & John
Living Thing
What are these lot up to? The band with the best debut single since MTV went GMTV, followed by a limited-run concept album about the Swedish seaside and now this schiz-pop jalopy of an album. Mixing addictive soft rock choruses, thrilling Afrobeat riffs and electro echoes with hip-hop beats breeds a strange fruit that manages to be tasty, sweet and tuneful, if not quite seedless.

Electro
Röyksopp
Junior
It’s OK to drop one and dance to Röyksopp because their music’s all over the ads; a heavy night down the top-rank ballroom can feel as safe as sitting in front of an ad for a Seat or a cellphone, right? Right! They’re still great: while the whole world has borrowed their girl-meets-beats formula, the boys from Bergen have been stretching their synths to make a danceable, floor-filling classic that’s this page’s first flash of summer.

Political comedy In The Loop
Dir: Armando Iannucci
Iannucci’s Westminster-based satire has gone transatlantic for its big-screen spin where US hawks are counting on some UK poodle-ing so they can start a war. Tom Hollander’s headlights-eyed rabbit of an MP is caught between making his name and sticking to his guns while James Gandolfini plays a tough-guy general with equally mixed morals. Naturally, Peter Capaldi’s Malcolm Tucker swears his way to success as the brilliantly cruel spin doctor in what is really the most painfully funny film in decades.

Biog/drama
The Damned United
Dir: Tom Hooper
After being Blair and warming Frost, actor Michael Sheen completes a hat-trick as football manager Brian Clough in a stylish take on David Peace’s 2006 novel. This is a love story between two men: one ambitious to a fault; the other (coach Peter Taylor, played by Timothy Spall) all content and no style. Like Clough himself, it’s funny, charming and slightly tragic.