We made a reading list for men, so naturally the women required one too. From murderous charm and crumbling castles to great love affairs, difficult women and lives lived spectacularly off-script, these are the books we think every woman should encounter at least once.

Forget productivity manuals and the books promising to turn you into a millionaire before breakfast. This is a reading list about courage, obsession, faith, failure, love, horses, hell and the occasional catastrophic decision. Ten books worth reading, plus one we couldn't leave out.

You got the job, the house, the money, perhaps even the reassuringly expensive coat. So why aren't you happy? We spend our lives chasing success without questioning who planted the idea in the first place. Perhaps the way back to ourselves is surprisingly simple: stop performing and start playing.

Cinema has always been rather good at making us want clothes. Not necessarily because the clothes themselves are extraordinary, but because of the lives happening inside them. Alain Delon made a pale shirt look dangerous, Diane Keaton turned waistcoats and men's trousers into a uniform, and Richard Gere made soft tailoring feel positively indecent. Before we could identify every jacket, loafer and pair of sunglasses online, we had to do something far more interesting: steal the idea.

A few things worth buying, planting, lighting, eating and generally fussing over this month.

You’re not imagining it. You travel three thousand miles, order a coffee and realise you could quite easily be in Margate.

Buy one properly and, for six months of the year, nobody need know what you are wearing underneath.

A hotel should make you behave slightly differently from the moment you walk through the door.

Forget the perfect interior. The most beautiful homes are inherited, collected, travelled and allowed to grow old.

Once, individuality was cultivated rather than curated. From Diana Vreeland and Cecil Beaton to Isabella Blow and André Leon Talley, we celebrate those rare figures who understood that being yourself occasionally requires becoming something entirely of your own invention.

Cutler remembers Dolly Parton: songwriter, storyteller, actress, philanthropist and one of the great American originals.

New York's legendary jazz club crosses the Atlantic. This September, London gets a Blue Note of its own.

Eight books for anyone who suspects there is more to life than what can be found at the end of a scroll.

As cinema prepares to return to the Lido, Cutler looks ahead to the films, faces and old world glamour of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.

Somewhere along the way, getting dressed became another problem to solve. Perhaps it is time we started enjoying it again.

Cinema - Pedro Almodóvar turns the camera towards himself in a film about grief, inspiration and the uncomfortable question of who really owns a story.

This autumn, the V&A opens the wardrobe of one of Britain's greatest showmen.

Why it might be time to clear the table, open a bottle and start inviting people over again.

In the glamorous world of Hollywood's golden era, where movie stars were revered as gods and goddesses, one man's lens captured their essence like no other. George Hurrell, a masterful portrait photographer, played a pivotal role in shaping the iconic images of Hollywood celebrities during the 1930s and 1940s.

Before buying another imitation of the past, consider buying the thing that inspired it.