Making masterpieces
John Boorman's Adventures of a Suburban Boy is not just a record of his Hollywood career, but an imprint of his life. David Thomson applauds the director's talent and honesty
At home with the Khans
Veronica Horwell is captivated by an Afghan family in Asne Seierstad's The Bookseller of Kabul
Where’s Circe?
Roy Hattersley hates Paul Bailey's casual reminiscences in A Dog's Life
The double man
Ian Gilmour enjoys The Electric Shepherd, a vivid account of James Hogg's life and works by Karl Miller
Lyrical Bryson given guard of UK heritage
Bill Bryson, the laureate of the Blackpool landlady, the slightly damp mattress, and the ominous stain on the bedroom ceiling, was yesterday appointed watchman over all such treasures.
Exhumation may let a poet’s bones speak
Is a pit near Granada the resting place of the writer Federico Garcia Lorca and other Franco victims? Tests should soon give an answer.
Telling tales
AN Wilson's prurient portrait, Iris Murdoch As I Knew Her, adds little to our understanding, says Galen Strawson
The not-so eminent Victorian
Kathryn Hughes on Bulwer Lytton, Leslie Mitchell's biography of an oddball Victorian man of letters
Brooke Crutchley
Obituary: Changing the face of Cambridge University Press.
Sleuthing students solve Wodehouse castle mystery
PG Wodehouse frequently located his aristocratic characters at Blandings Castle, somewhere in Shropshire. The search for the stately home has preoccupied Wodehouse fans ever since.
The queen of Coole
Brenda Maddox welcomes Lady Gregory's Toothbrush, Colm Tóibín's revisionist portrait of a great patron of the Irish arts
The magus
John Banville applauds a biography of Isaac Newton that doesn't neglect his study of alchemy
My granny was a book thief
They were hidden in cupboards, drawers and crannies - 300 books stolen from the public library. But why did she take them? And could she really read tea leaves? John Sutherland remembers.
A war to call my own
James Astill follows a journalist's quest to connect with Africa in The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley
The pain is not the point
Simon Callow welcomes an opportunity to revisit the best of Kenneth Tynan's work in Dominic Shellard's life of the critic