Children of rich parents are better at reading
A five-year-old whose parents earn more than £67,500 has reading skills six months more advanced than one whose parents are jobless.
Roots and branches
Melissa Benn examines the lives of two of Ireland's favourite daughters in Nell by Nell McCafferty and The Road from Ardoyne by Ray Mac Manais.
Cry, the beloved country
Justin Hill on Michela Wrong's moving and ultimately uplifting account of Eritrea's emancipation, I Didn't Do It For You.
Falling in love again
Depression cut the naturalist Richard Mabey off from the natural world. He charts his slow process of recovery in Nature Cure.
Why the culture of failure has been hard to break
In the second of a three-part serialisation of their new book, Polly Toynbee and David Walker assess whether Labour has delivered on its second-term promises. Today they examine education.
You’ve got male
Tom Lubbock enjoys James Hall's diverting look at art, Michelangelo and the Reinvention of the Human Body.
Life begins at 50
Walter Sickert is remembered as a friend of more famous folk. Jad Adams wonders if he is worthy of Matthew Sturgis's extended biography.
Shelf life
From Arthur C Clarke to James Watson, escape the January gloom with Tim Radford's essential science library.
£1.7m keeps medieval book in UK
The Macclesfield Psalter, a compendium of medieval piety and outrageously bawdy jokes, will stay in East Anglia, where it was made in about 1320, after a national appeal raised the £1.7m to match the auction price offered by the Getty Museum in California.
Common sense has much to learn from moonshine
Philip Pullman: It's time English teachers got back to basics - less grammar, more play.
Buried masterpieces
Leader: While scientists and others were mesmerised at the weekend by pictures taken of Saturn's moon after the Huygens spaceprobe's two billion mile journey, an Oxford conference was discussing something more down to earth.
The perfect lie
This year's Guardian/Piccadilly Press competition for teenage writers is introduced by DBC Pierre, who has contributed his own take on the title theme of lies and lying in a brand new short story.
The Creole with the teacup
The lady with the lamp's rival, Mary Seacole, is beginning to receive proper recognition. If only Jane Robinson had delved a little deeper, says Kathryn Hughes.