Homefires burning: how a cache of passionate love letters shows the second world war on two fronts

The intimate correspondence of a Manchester Guardian journalist and his wife is now the basis for a theatre piece marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day

When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter review – all the fun of the Fair

In his memoir the former Vanity Fair editor and man-about-town recalls the golden age of glossy magazines, when sales were in the millions and ‘the budget had no ceiling’

Joe Haines obituary

Press secretary to Harold Wilson in the late 60s and 70s who went on to work for the Daily Mirror

‘Dark and dingy’ or ‘a real loss’? Shoppers react to possible loss of WH Smith

Stevenage is one of 500 UK towns where threatened closures will affect local retailers and the publishing trade

Farewell Gary Indiana: underground hero who chronicled the fallacies of erotic life

The novelist, playwright and critic was a bête noire of the art world and searing critic of American values

Lost GK Chesterton essay about detective stories published for first time

Unpublished essay linked to author’s membership of ‘secret society of mystery writers’ to be printed in Strand Magazine

A Memoir of My Former Self by Hilary Mantel audiobook review – preoccupations of a vibrant mind

Actor Lydia Leonard and novelist Anne Enright are among the narrators of the Wolf Hall author’s engaging essays on Madonna, Jane Austen and Princess Diana

Academic journals are a lucrative scam – and we’re determined to change that

Giant publishers are bleeding universities dry, with profit margins that rival Google’s. So we decided to start our own, says academic Arash Abizadeh

All the Worst Humans by Phil Elwood review – confessions of a cleanup man

A former PR looks back on a career spent whitewashing ‘foreign baddies’

Joe Joyce obituary

Award-winning journalist who worked for the Irish Times and the Guardian and co-wrote a bestseller on the scandal-prone taoiseach Charles Haughey

These Foolish Things: A Memoir by Dylan Jones review – stars in his eyes

The former GQ editor’s memoir is a ‘precarious balancing act’, revealing parental abuse while emphasising his celebrity-heavy career

Terry Coleman obituary

Guardian journalist of the 1970s and 80s who dispensed with deference towards the famous to make each interview an event

Tom Davies obituary

Other lives: Fleet Street journalist and author of novels and travel books

Maureen O’Connor obituary

Other lives: Crime novelist and founding editor of Education Guardian

Top authors join trail of Devil in the Wilderness podcast real-life murder mystery

Michael Frayn and Blake Morrison help son of Christopher Wordsworth in attempt to unravel whether depression might have led Observer writer to kill