Education mandarins given black mark for ‘institutional illiteracy’
A Department for Education and Skills' handbook on how to teach English has been criticised for its bad grammar and clumsy language.
Secret of historic code: it’s gibberish
Mystery of manuscript that foxed scholars for centuries is solved.
Wholly Roman empire
James Buchan enjoys Audrey Burl's Catullus, an imagined life of one of Rome's greatest poets
Love letters lost and found
A 12th-century nun's story still holds surprises, finds Stephen Romer, reading James Burge's Heloise and Abelard
This ill-fated queen
Mary Queen of Scots was ruled by her heart while her English cousin ruled with her head. True or false? In John Guy's My Heart Is My Own, Sarah Gristwood finds that bad luck rather than bad statesmanship led to Mary's downfall
Beware the natives and their norms
Speakers of English as an International Language must claim it for themselves, argues Jennifer Jenkins
What would a modern Mozart be like?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27 1756, the last of seven children, five of whom died in infancy or early childhood.
There’ll never be another you
In her new book, Arlene Judith Klotzko says we're more than the sum of our genes
Teachers win battle of the Bard
'Dumbed down' Shakespeare examination to be abandoned.
The noisy poet
Andrew Motion searches for new insights into the life of an eminent Victorian in Iain Finlayson's Browning
A man in two minds
Deirdre Bair's diligent biography of Carl Jung reveals his divided personality, but the more we know about him the less real he becomes, says Adam Phillips
Haw-Haw, jaw jaw, war war
Hywel Williams assesses Germany Calling, Mary Kenny's biography of the Irish rebel and Nazi propagandist, William Joyce
Norberto Bobbio
Key Italian political philosopher whose vigilance and clarity helped guide his country's postwar democracy.
In lingua veritas
Victor Klemperer's diaries, The Lesser Evil, are a monument to his profound commitment to language and truth, says Stevie Davies