Over here and out there
Tom Dewe Matthews races through Norma Barzman's lively record of life in exile, The Red and the Blacklist.
Alethea Hayter obituary
A cultural ambassador, Hayter wrote scholarly but readable studies of history
Bad old boys
Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, Stewart Granger, Mae West - some of Hollywood's greatest stars were also its worst advertisement, says Chris Petit.
Tales from a national treasure
Alfred Hickling wades through Eric Sykes's rambling autobiography, If I Don't Write It, Nobody Else Will.
Sassoon unplugged
Max Egremont struggles with the suffocating gloominess of the poet's postwar life in his skilful biography of Siegfried Sassoon, says Andrew Motion.
To kill a king
Geoffrey Robertson impresses Michael Moorcock with his biography of the lawyer who prosecuted Charles I, The Tyrannicide Brief.
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.