Born to be fat

The genetic quest is on again - this time for a miracle cure for the obesity pandemic that is rapidly spreading across the world. In the meantime, at least we now know why some people get fat and others don't. Ellen Ruppel Shell investigates.

How to be like me

Andy Beckett finds New York's ex-mayor, Rudolph W Giuliani, a bit too business-like in Leadership

On Being Dealt the Anti-Semitic Card

Comment: Tom Paulin on being called anti-semitic.

Liberal interpretation: Jenkins the biographer

The late founder of the SDP wrote lives that very much reflected his own political development, says Tristram Hunt.

Publishers damned

Free online science service challenges established journals.Donald MacLeod reports

Darwin’s web

In The Power of Place, the second volume of Janet Browne's biography of Charles Darwin, AS Byatt discovers the role of the postal service in the formulation of evolutionary theory

Wherever I lay my hat

Some doctors suggest that it is a disease, but for Richard Grant constant travel is simply a way of life. Ian Sansom goes along for the ride in Ghost Riders

Feminism meets Hello! head on

Pop stars and poets are all grist to Professor Jacqueline Rose's intellectual mill in her collection of essays, On Not Being Able to Sleep

A Wild West hero? As if…

Hollywood created Jesse James's legend. But despite TJ Stiles's scholarly biography, he was little more than a homicidal thief, says Roy Hattersley

Sentimental journey

Marina Benjamin on how the world fell out of love with the moon.