Madonna, Queen of the World by Douglas Thompson (Blake, £16.99)

Love her or loath her, Madonna has managed to pull off that difficult trick in the fickle world of showbiz - keeping us interested in her.

Since she first burst on the pop scene with Holiday in the mid-80s, she has constantly reninvented herself to make sure she was rarely out of fashion.

It has sometimes been a bumpy ride - her 1992 book Sex, in which she attempted to recreate her version of female sex fantasies, backfired when she misjudged how far she could take on public opinion and sexual inhibitions.

But she managed to bounce back and is still at her peak professionally as well as finding happiness in her personal life with film director Guy Ritchie.

While able to generate endless column inches, the singer and actress has strived to conceal her true self, expecting total loyalty from her nearest and dearest.

In Madonna, Queen of the World, out on August 16, biographer Douglas Thompson tries to peel away some of the layers to find out more about the woman underneath.

As well as charting her rise to superstardom he also bravely tries to find out more about her failed marriage to Sean Penn and her relationship with Warren Beatty.

Thompson, whose past subjects include Clint Eastwood and Michelle Pfeiffer, claims to have had exclusive interviews with key figures in the singer's life but there doesn't seem to be much here that is not already known.