Canon fodder
Stephen Moss: It's madness to force-feed the classics to teenagers - it could put them off reading for life.
This reading list fails the test
John Sutherland: Anyone looking thoughtfully at the curriculum prescribed by Alan Johnson's Department for Education and Skills will be inclined to sum it up in one phrase: "Conservative".
Minister secures place of ‘heritage’ novels on schools list
Alan Johnson has moved to quash reports that changes to the curriculum will mean a "dumbing down" of English lessons, saying students will still study from a list of authors from before the first world war that includes Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Arthur Conan Doyle and George Eliot. However, he wants to begin debate on whether more modern authors should remain on the list.
Philip Rieff
Obituary: A New York academic and onetime husband of Susan Sontag, his books expressed a profound discontent with civilization.
Gallic grandeur
Frederick Brown tries to encompass Flaubert's massive, contradictory nature in a huge biography of literature's most obsessional stylist, says Adam Thorpe.
What the butler saw
Ian Sansom welcomes two more additions to the vast mountain of Proustiana: the memoirs of his valet Ernest A Forssgren and Proust in Love by William C Carter.
The Victorian Bob Geldof
Nicola Humble enjoys Ruth Cowen's life of Victorian celebrity chef Alexis Soyer, Relish.
Street signs
Edward Hammond gives a practitioner's view of four authors' writings on graffiti.
Music to our eyes
It's the detail that makes the story ... Joe Boyd on Studs Turkels's collection of musical interviews, And They All Sang.
Going the whole hog
Sue Birtwistle gobbles up the story of Bill Buford's transformation from writer to chef, Heat.
We are not amuth’d
When it comes to literary criticism, why is there so much bad writing about good writing, asks John Sutherland.
The line of duty
Book of the week: In The Plimsoll Sensation, Nicolette Jones provides Samuel Plimsoll with the monument he has long deserved, says Geoffrey Moorhouse.
Ben and his boys
Lucasta Miller applauds Britten's Children, John Bridcut's sensitively-handled exploration of Benjamin Britten's obsession with adolescents.