Good man, loose tongue
Malcolm Rifkind believes that Robin Cook deserves his country's gratitude, but doubts he should have revealed intimate cabinet discussions in his memoir, Point of Departure
Dylan Thomas’s grandad was model of lust
Poet did not have to look far for illustration of hypocrisy.
The road to inspiration
Although he came from the 'Brideshead generation', Robert Byron's political instincts were sharp. William Dalrymple acclaims James Knox's biography of the man who wrote the greatest pre-war travel book
Pas de deux
The Lives of the Muses by Francine Prose reveals that inspiring an artist is a complicated and mostly unenviable task, says Kathryn Hughes
Booze clues
The god of wine has a new biography. Ranjit Bolt hiccups over Andrew Dalby's Bacchus
Tony Beal
Obituary: Innovative educational editor and publisher.
Richard Wollheim
Brilliant philosopher engaged with the interaction of art and psychoanalysis.
Neil Postman
Obituary: Sceptical American critic of the internet, television and the information age.
Our two wise men
David Aaronovitch: The political acuity of Orwell and Hobsbawm should be treasured by both Right and Left.
The end of the affair
Sue MacGregor discovers how Joan Bakewell conquered hurdles, both professional and emotional, yet never lost her integrity, in The Centre of the Bed
The view from downstairs
Catherine Bennett finds the Windsors' treatment of their domestic staff appalling in Paul Burrell's memoir, A Royal Duty, and Rebecca Tyrrel's portrait of Camilla Parker-Bowles. They have only themselves to blame for the latest avalanche of revelations and tittle-tattle
One of the chaps
Hermione Lee on Caroline Moorehead's account of Martha Gellhorn, a brave and glamorous journalist who loved writing more than she did men
Writing from a borrowed land
Maya Jaggi on Isabel Allende's recollections of her native Chile, My Invented Country
Carolyn Gold Heilbrun
Important feminist literary critic and theorist who, as Amanda Cross, was also a much-loved writer of detective stories.
Chaucer’s tales go online complete with old graffiti
Even today, the saga of the Wife of Bath and her toyboy is found colourful enough to be relished by seven million viewers in the hit BBC series The Canterbury Tales, but this is as nothing compared with the outrage she provoked 500 years ago.