Waiting for God
Blake Morrison finds some comfort in memoirs from Richard Hoggart and George Melly, and a celebration of growing old disgracefully from Susanna Johnston, Late Youth.
Great Scott
Kevin Rushby applauds Scott of the Antarctic, David Crane's fine biography of the flawed polar hero whose death was his finest hour.
Veiled ode to George Bush deleted from Pakistani textbooks
A poem has been removed from school textbooks in Pakistan after it became clear that the first letter of each line spelt out 'President George W Bush'.
The ideas interview: Philip Rieff
We are facing an age of barbarism, and must embrace 'inactivism', the eminent sociologist tells John Sutherland.
A spoonful of bile
Even Valerie Lawson's sympathetic biography of PL Travers, Mary Poppins She Wrote, reveals little to love in the creator of Disney's favourite nanny, says Kathryn Hughes.
Oswald Hanfling
Obituary: Philosopher engaged with Wittgenstein and the Open University.
The ideas interview: Jacqueline Rose
Psychoanalysis can help explain why Israel acts as it does, and how it can change. By John Sutherland.
Not about heroes
Andrey Kurkov on A Writer at War, Vasily Grossman's long-suppressed memoir.
Chapter and worse: it’s now publish and be downloaded
John Naughton: Print is rather low-tech and unsexy, and teenagers aren't much interested in it, so the dangers of being ripped off wholesale by online text-sharing seemed remote.
Liberty’s rake
James Buchan enjoys Roger Pearson's elegant and learned life of the man who embodied the Enlightenment, Voltaire Almighty.
The hunting of Herman Melville
Jay Parini hails the first proper life of the elusive author of Moby-Dick, Andrew Delbanco's Melville: His World and Work.
A bookworm’s delight
Google is hoping to put virtually every book ever written online, writes Victor Keegan.
Chomsky is voted world’s top public intellectual
· Missing from list: young, women, and the French · Honour leaves linguistics professor underwhelmed
The non-joiner
Simon Callow on the latest instalment of Alan Bennett's autobiographical compendium, Untold Stories.