Greg Jenner’s survey of celebrities through the ages has a distinctly Horrible Histories feel

Good writing about celebrity is scant. It has few poets, because it takes depth to go truly shallow (I’d nominate Roland Barthes, Peter Conrad, Kenneth Tynan, Clive James, Marina Hyde, Lynn Barber and the New Yorker’s Lauren Collins). It all runs the risk of becoming instantly dated. As a magazine interviewer myself, I’ve learnt to expect anyone blabbing about their marital bliss and vegan awakening to be divorced and setting up a burger chain by the time the piece comes out.

After celebrities die they are stratified; the very good or very bad get biographers. But the mere celebs get Greg Jenner. Despite his previous achievements in making history palatable to children (he was the fact-checker on the team that created the all-conquering Horrible Histories on TV), this personable, self-styled ‘public historian’ had something of a shock here. Writing this book, he tells us, took him four years, 1.4 million words of notes and five editors.