The Magus
Brian Clegg presents Roger Bacon as a great intellectual in his biography of the medieval innovator, The First Scientist. But can he live up to his title? Benjamin Woolley isn't convinced
Riddle solved
John Spurling looks at the extraordinary life of Erskine Childers in Leonard Piper's biography of the novelist, gun runner and patriot, Dangerous Waters
A life outside
How important will the works of Shakespeare be when it comes to getting a job after university, asks Jamie Douglass
Gospel truth
Research throws new light on Lindisfarne manuscript.
Refugees are right-on in Rosselson’s book
If anyone was going to write a decent children's book about the pain of being a refugee in modern Britain, it would have to be the honest and radical Leon Rosselson.
The mogul with octopus arms
Simon Callow on Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni's biography of Sam Spiegel, a supreme example of the producer-buccaneer
Ghost stories
In a crowded field, Hilary Mantel's memoir, Giving Up the Ghost, shines with virtuosity
Briton spied on Orwell in Spain
Surveillance for Soviets during civil war claimed writer's wife was having affair
The trials of honest Abe
Andrew Rosenheim enjoys Thomas Keneally's straightforward biography, Lincoln
Bookshop’s quantum leap into the past
New venture by a literary magazine eschews the pile-'em-high philosophy of the giants of the bookselling world.