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.
Fat boy grim
William Leith has bitten off more than he can chew with The Hungry Years, says Alfred Hickling.
National treasures
Bestselling author Dave Eggers is brandishing his cutlass in defence of underpaid teachers. Dan Glaister visits him at a centre he runs for students in San Francisco.
The Wolfgang pack
Simon Callow relishes Jane Glover's beautiful account of the women in the composer's life, Mozart's Women.
New theory shifts site of Homer’s isle of Ithaca
A British trio claiming to have solved one of the riddles of the ancient world have announced that the true location of Ithaca was not the island of Ithaki, as its residents believe, but a peninsula of Kefalonia.
Return of the time lord
Stephen Hawking talks to Emma Brockes about disability, why women can't read maps and thinking in 11 dimensions. And for those of a less scientific bent, we offer our briefest of brief histories.
Computer learns grammar by crunching sentences
Researchers have developed a computer program that can scan text in any number of languages, including English and Chinese, and without any previous knowledge infer the underlying rules of grammar.
Journey to the heart
A trunk full of letters helped Vikram Seth to reconstruct the story of his great-aunt Henny and his great-uncle Shanti. Two Lives is a fitting memorial of an extraordinary couple, says Blake Morrison.