Latin lovers are enjoying a boom
Response: We can no longer dismiss Latin as a dead language. It's in the middle of a real revival, says Will Griffiths.
Panic not, mother
When gap-year travellers email home, they mean to calm the fears of anxious parents. But these glimpses of hair-raising adventures in faraway lands can have the opposite effect - as this selection from Simon Hoggart and Emily Monk's new book shows.
A million fingers are tapping out a challenge to the tyranny of spelling
Simon Jenkins: The texting generation may yet realise George Bernard Shaw's dream of liberating the English language for all of us.
Exam board attacked for approving text message answers
Exam chiefs in Scotland branded 'ridiculous' after admitting answers written in text message language will be acceptable in English tests.
This term, we will be studying Zadie Smith
Time was when A-level students had to wade through Chaucer, Shakespeare or DH Lawrence. Now contemporary authors are an integral part of the syllabus. But who chooses which books become set texts - and why are the publishing houses so interested? John Mullan reports.
After Elizabeth
Jeremy Paxman highlights the problem with the monarchy in his study of the Windsors, On Royalty, says Billy Bragg.
Holding on to our heritage
Salman Rushdie's decision to sell his literary papers to an American university should be applauded for highlighting a lamentable aspect of UK government policy, says John Sutherland.
In praise of … Peter Hennessy
Leader: Prof Hennessy is not like anybody else. He is simultaneously both scholar and journalist, traditionalist and radical, conservative and liberal, patriot and subversive.
School introduces compulsory grammar lessons
Teenagers starting at a top fee-paying school face compulsory lessons in spelling, punctuation and grammar, it has emerged.
Writing right
Many students find grammar difficult. Jonathan Gabay delves into the intricacies.
English and proud of it
Mike Phillips searches for the deeper meaning behind one immigrant's success story, George Alagiah's A Home From Home.
Blood and Beak
The childhood recollections of Andrew Motion's In The Blood are vivid and poignant, says John Mullan.
Crown of scorn
Jane Robins tells the extraordinary story of George IV and his wife Caroline in Rebel Queen. David McKie on a marriage not made in heaven.
The world in miniature
Jenny Uglow's canny grasp of period detail immeasurably enriches Nature's Engraver, her life of 18th-century engraver Thomas Bewick, says Frances Spalding.