50 years of Alan Garner’s eerie brilliance

Alison Flood: The 50th birthday of Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is a great excuse for a festival – and some serious re-reading

A festival of voices from Africa

Betty Caplan visited the Storymoja festival in Kenya earlier this year, an event celebrating East African writing

The week in books

Free the word; Tintin in the dock; battle of the Barbies; and porn for nerds

Viggo Mortensen: The Road is a love story at heart

Guests at the Venice film festival glimpsed the apocalypse last night at the premiere of the drama based on Cormac McCarthy's bestselling novel

Venice film festival: The Road

Review: Starring Viggo Mortensen, John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel is a slice of powerful horror well worth the wait

Country diary

Paul Evans: Wenlock Edge

Art beat: Poetic justice for John Keats

The Hampstead romantic has a theatrical homecoming this summer – and also hits cinemas in the shape of Ben Whishaw

‘Everyone’s a pagan now’

From morris dancers in mirror shades to green activists getting in touch with their spiritual side, paganism is going mainstream. Cole Moreton reports on a new national faith