Victor victorious

Victor Hugo was born 200 years ago. But is the great French writer's birthday still worth celebrating? His biographer Graham Robb looks at the life and work of the man who first proposed a federal Europe

Truly, madly,deeply devout

In a new era of religious ferocity, clergyman's son Jonathan Raban traces the roots of fundamentalism as a theology of rebellion.

The genius of Rome

Sculptor, painter, architect - Gianlorenzo Bernini was the Vatican's secret weapon. By Jonathan Jones

Living in the twilight of empire

Claire Armitstead on two memoirs full of humour and horror - Before the Knife: Memories of an African Childhood by Carolyn Slaughter and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller

Master of the red Martini

Ian Sansom on a lucky poet who partied his way to posterity and behaved like a big baby in Robert Fraser's scintillating The Chameleon Poet: A Life of George Barker

Patriot games

Richard Norton-Taylor assesses the track record of the secret services in Percy Cradock's Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World and Peter Hennessy's The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War

Authors by night

Learned papers are not the only thing produced by our academics. More and more are turning to creative writing, as Simon Midgley discovers.

Classic journeys

Tourists have long flocked to places made famous by writers and their novels. Author Giles Foden looks at the lasting link between literature and holidays.

Chapter and verse

From Bath to Saigon and from the Brontës to Irvine Welsh, Desmond Balmer does it by the book...

The labour of love

Richard Hamilton is one of Britain's most influential artists, the man who invented pop art. Why did he spend 50 years illustrating a book? And was it worth it? Jonathan Jones reports

War and peace

The past 100 years changed the nature of war. With conflict worldwide showing no sign of abating, historian Eric Hobsbawm assesses the prospects for stability in the new century