Last words

Haunted by his mother's madness, insomnia and self-loathing, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, one of Japan's leading literary figures, killed himself at 35. But not before a final creative outpouring, says David Peace.

A force of nature

Millais idolised and was greatly inspired by Ruskin. But after he seduced his hero's wife, his work became more flamboyant and populist. Fiona MacCarthy hails an impressionist ahead of his time.

The look of the moment

Gifted, beautiful and unpredictable, Lee Miller's career took her from the fashion pages of Vogue to the front line of the second world war. But while she is celebrated as one of the finest photographers of the 20th century, her great talents as a writer are often forgotten, argues Ali Smith.

Of mice and men

Richard Williams enjoys Daniel Taylor's epic study of the inexorable rise of Sir Alex Ferguson, This Is the One.

The call of the wild

Baritone Simon Keenlyside is home after years working abroad. He enjoys flamenco and the blues as much as opera, but his greatest inspiration comes from the natural world.

Dr Greer on the warpath

Germaine Greer's impassioned plea on behalf of Ann Hathaway in Shakespeare's Wife is fatally undermined by a fact-free and vituperative attack on the Bard, says Peter Conrad.

In truth, beauty

They were scruffy, stroppy and barely out of school, but, as Kevin Jackson explains, the angry young men of the documentary film movement made Britain's most significant contribution to cinema history.

Married to the myth

Charles Nicholl admires Germaine Greer's spirited attempt to defend Ann Hathaway, Shakespeare's Wife.

Passion and perversity

Amit Chaudhuri is fascinated by the Lawrentian echoes in VS Naipaul's A Writer's People.

Authority figures

Jonathan Derbyshire on Mark Edmundson's riveting account of the father of psychoanalysis's last years, The Death of Sigmund Freud.

What does soulful mean?

Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God was for decades a well-loved secret among black women. Zadie Smith recalls her emotional first reading of the novel, and claims it as a classic for all audiences.

1408

Peter Bradshaw: An excellent chiller based on Stephen King's short story and starring John Cusack as a cynical writer who cranks out tongue-in-cheek tourist guides to supposedly haunted hotels.

A dangerous liaison

Frances Stonor Saunders on Robert Dallek's fascinating study of a relationship formed from mutual mistrust, Nixon and Kissinger.