Earth and stones
Mourid Barghouti's personal and emotional look at the Palestine question, I Saw Ramallah, touches Avi Shlaim
The man within
Ian Thomson welcomes Yvonne Cloetta's In Search of a Beginning, a life of Graham Greene that is faithful to the person, not the gossip
Kingston’s coup
Kingston University is pitching its acquisition of the Iris Murdoch archive as a "happy ending" for the collection that has been homeless for a year. But in fact it is more of a coup. Polly Curtis reports
British Library puts sound archive online
Thousands of sound recordings from the British Library are to be made available online in a £1m programme.
Grammar should be a friend, not an enemy
A recent survey reveals that British university students don't know what they are talking about
The moralist
Can we expect politicians to have complete ethical integrity? Yes, says philosopher Peter Singer, whose latest book scrutinises the words and deeds of George Bush - and finds him lacking. He talks to Gary Younge.
Hughes in hiding over Birthday Letters
A letter to his illustrator Leonard Baskin shows the late poet laureate's feelings about his revelatory poems.
Ben Pimlott
Gifted and prolific historian and political biographer who reassessed Labour's heroes and villains.
Labour historian Pimlott dies at 58
Ben Pimlott, the political historian and biographer, died on Saturday of leukaemia, at 58.
King of the jungle
John Banville warms to Joe Eszterhas, screenwriter extraordinaire and a true Hollywood Animal
Reality studios
Matthew Collings welcomes the first substantial biography of Bill Brandt, despite Paul Delaney's penchant for psycho-babble
You can’t put a throttle on a bottle
The Smoking Diaries, Simon Gray's rant against a 'nasty, stupid' world, is a masterpiece of grim humour, says Jenny Diski
Victorian values
Jane Pugin's touching journal, Dearest Augustus and I, moves Jonathan Glancey to tears