In Lives, an extraordinary writer encounters some remarkable people – and evokes their inner worlds.

Peter Robb has an uncanny ability to get under the skin of his profile subjects: to show them in a new light, to home in on what makes them tick. In Australia, these range from Alex Dimitriades to Ivan Milat, from Marcia Langton to Julian Assange. In Italy, Robb immerses the reader in the worlds of Fellini, Caravaggio, Calvino and Pasolini. Elsewhere, his portraits of EM Forster, Arthur Rimbaud, Peter Carey and Gore Vidal illuminate the real people behind the public image. This is a fascinating exploration of human life in all its variety, glamour and idiosyncrasy.