Fay and fortune
Fay Weldon's autobiography, Auto da Fay, is engrossing. And maddening, for she prefers fiction to real life
The benighted state of America
Will Hutton's analysis is undermined by his polemical stance, but The World We're In will get people talking
Better the Mo we know
She's a fine woman who could have made it to Downing Street. But in her autobiography, Momentum, Mo Mowlam sells herself short
Reporting on the reporters
Fred Iglis salutes the stars of the journalistic firmament - or at least the high-minded left quadrant of it - in People's Witness
‘Fab – but where’s the cat gone?’
It's had a £10m facelift - but it may have lost its most beloved exhibit. Maev Kennedy on Brighton Museum
Telling it like it is
Chris Smith follows Mo Mowlam's autobiographical account of the Northern Ireland peace process in Momentum
Leaps of faith
Akbar Ahmed on the confrontation between Islam and the west in three new authoritative texts by Tariq Ali, Bernard Lewis and John Esposito
Comic burn
Yohann Hari on American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story, Cynthia True's biography of the late comic
Etcher sketch
Adrian Searle finds a lack of perspective in Julia Blackburn's Old Man Goya, a homage to the Spanish artist
Frankenstein may have been based on Scots scientist
Victor Frankenstein - mad middle European experimenter and ever-ready metaphor for the overreaching scientist - may have been inspired by a retired Scot.
‘Tome Raider’ stole antique books worth £1.1m
A Cambridge graduate who stole antique books and pamphlets worth an estimated £1.1m from libraries and then sold them at auctions is today facing a lengthy jail term.
A man of many parts
A high-flying surgeon, medical reformer and foppish playboy, the great question remains - was James Barry a man or woman? Rachel Holmes investigates in Scanty Particulars
The creepy Mr Cripps
Peter Clarke's masterful biography, The Cripps Version, makes a strong case for the importance of Stafford Cripps, but he still gives Andrew Rawnsley the creeps