The French rose from Manchester: in search of Proust’s forgotten muse
The poignant story of the Englishwoman Marie Nordlinger is told in a new book about her life with the writer
1984 by George Orwell audiobook review – a starry cast drive this powerful dramatisation
Tom Hardy, Cynthia Erivo and Andrew Scott conjure menace and melodrama in this 75th-anniversary remake of Orwell’s classic
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Bettany Hughes review – wonder lust
From the Great Pyramid at Giza to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, a thrilling journey in the footsteps of the ancients
Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard review – imperial exploits
An enthralling analysis of the wild stories that circulated about Rome’s ruthless rulers
The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson review – a bravura feat
Six years on from her translation of the Odyssey, Wilson revels in the clarity and emotional clout of Homer’s battlefield epic
‘We’re not the first generation to wonder how genuine our leaders are’: Mary Beard on politicians as performers
From Nero to Sunak, leaders have always put on a show for the public. The scholar explores the notorious Roman emperor’s fondness for acting and how the stage became a metaphor for power itself
‘The Iliad may be ancient – but it’s not far away’: Emily Wilson on Homer’s blood-soaked epic
Following her acclaimed translation of the Odyssey, Wilson has turned to Homer’s other, darker poem. She explains how she got stuck for six months – and why it speaks to today’s era of conflict
‘Somehow I failed to clock her magnificence’: was the world’s first literary hero a woman?
For centuries, Gilgamesh has been thought of as the world’s oldest literary hero – but does that title rightfully belong to the ancient goddess Inanna?
Top 10 books about tycoons
From rapacious businessmen to political power brokers, this literature extends from biographies of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Tiny Rowland to novels by Scott Fitzgerald and Preti Taneja
‘It was exciting to create these beastly, huge, grotesque women’: the authors gender-swapping the Greek myths
With its heroic female leads and men who long to be fathers, Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett’s new book looks at modern mores through an ancient lens
Philologist Irene Vallejo: ‘Alexander the Great’s library was the first step towards the internet’
The Spanish writer on how Papyrus, her bestselling history of literature in the ancient world, changed her life at a difficult moment, and why it’s a mistake to undervalue books
If looks could kill: how Medusa became a potent political meme
Medusa has become the default allegory for a hated woman in the public eye, but those who fear her lethal gaze would do well to revisit the myth
Flash of genius: how a Cornish lighthouse inspired Virginia Woolf’s fictional icon
St Ives holiday home that planted the seed for English writer’s modernist masterpiece To the Lighthouse has now earned a historic plaque
Peter Mackridge obituary
Pioneer of Modern Greek studies in British universities fascinated by questions of language and identity
‘First modern novel – oldest language’: Sanskrit translation of Don Quixote rescued from oblivion
Translated by two Kashmiri pandits from an C18th English translation in the 1930s, unique work lay forgotten in a Harvard University library