World eaters

Siddhartha Deb on Parita Mukta's memoir, Shards of Memory, that captures the migrant experience among Gujarat's Hindu diaspora

Only painting was real

Richard Shone on Sarah MacDougall's biography of Mark Gertler, the young star of bohemian London who was floored by real life

Truth and its consequences

Simon Hattenstone on Sunbathing in the Rain by Gwyneth Lewis - a survivor's recollection of depression

In search of lost times

When the brilliant Renaissance scholar Sir John Hale had a stroke at the age of 69 he was written off by doctors as a hopeless case. His wife, Sheila Hale, refused to give up. In an extract from her moving new book, she recounts her painful battles with the NHS and her search to rediscover the husband she once knew.

Slick Willie: the half-truth

Joe Klein, the author of Primary Colors, goes back to the Clinton White House, but this time it's fact, not fiction with The Natural

An old case for a new order

Charles Leadbeater believes passionately in globalisation, but fails to deliver a convincing argument in Up the Down Escalator

A love unspoken

Sheila Hale never thought she was worthy of her husband, the brilliant historian, Sir John Hale. But when he suffered a stroke, she finally discovered her true value.

A farmer and his pen

Rosie Boycott is charmed by Chris Stewart's tales of wry Spanish neighbours and the parrot from hell in A Parrot in the Pepper Tree

Policing academe

This week the British Academy, in collaboration with the ICA, will debate the relevance of modern literary theory. Are academics lost in ideas, or do the media lack understanding of literature? Geoffrey Wheatcroft has his say.