Confessions of a serial dabbler
The eccentric, aimless life of Sweden's Queen Christina fascinates Frances Wilson in Veronica Buckley's wonderfully rich and poignant book
Reality studios
Matthew Collings welcomes the first substantial biography of Bill Brandt, despite Paul Delaney's penchant for psycho-babble
Petrarch – the poet who lost his head
Italian who defined the sonnet at centre of medieval whodunnit.
Michael Foot pledges Hazlitt library to trust
Michael Foot confirmed yesterday that the cream of his Hazlitt collection will pass to the Wordsworth Trust when he 'conks out'.
A robot to DIY for
Dylan Evans on a novel approach to scientific investigation in Steve Grand's Growing Up with Lucy
Seizure and rape of British women was newspaper fantasy
Fresh evidence suggests that British women shipwrecked off southern Africa in 1782 chose to marry into African tribes and were not abducted and raped as reported in the press at the time. By Rory Carroll.
Correspondents’ course
Jonathan Steele takes the temperature of reporting on the war in Iraq with accounts from Rageh Omaar, Oliver Poole and Toby Dodge
Crime writing
Erwin James is moved by Mark Salzman's account of juvenile offenders finding a voice, True Notebooks
Khan of all he surveys
Sue Bradbury follows the story of the once and future ruler of the Mongols in John Man's Genghis Khan
Balfour’s bubble
The politician who became a conman... and his cronies. Kathryn Hughes on Jabez, David McKie's Victorian tale for our times
Dun dreaming
Joan Didion's Where I Was From debunks Californian mythology, says Blake Morrison
Starting out with words that ‘glue’ language
An extract from the British Council Elton award winning Natural Grammar by Scott Thornbury
Blood and guts
Roundheads, Cavaliers and Cromwell’s legacy: Blair Worden assesses three studies of the English civil wars
I was not a lab rat
A new book has rekindled old rumours that renowned psychologist BF Skinner used his baby daughter in his experiments. Stop this rubbish about me and my dad, says Deborah Skinner Buzan.
New book reopens old arguments about slave raids on Europe
US scholar claims more than 1m people were captured by African pirates.