The Song of the Shirt: Cheap Clothes Across Continents and Centuries by Jeremy Seabrook – review
From Rana Plaza back to the Lancashire mills, the story of an industry happy to exploit. By Sukhdev Sandhu
Clive James: It’s awkward I’m still alive
Writer and broadcaster, who wrote a poem earlier this year predicting he would be dead by autumn, says he’s embarrassed he is still here
Shakespeare first folio found in French library
1623 collection of plays – one of only 230 believed to exist – lay undisturbed in library at St-Omer for 200 years
Lemony Snicket author makes $110,000 apology for racist remarks
Daniel Handler promises donation after remarks to Brown Girl Dreaming author Jacqueline Woodson at National Book Awards
Valérie Trierweiler: ‘It’s more dignified to shut up? Is that how we serve the cause of women? I don’t think so…’
Valérie Trierweiler talks to Elizabeth Day about being ‘betrayed and humiliated’ by President Hollande, her supposed suicide attempt, and why first ladies come last in French politics
Oscar Pistorius trial books review – the case that mesmerised the world
Tim Lewis weighs up the evidence from three accounts of a gripping trial by June Steenkamp, Mandy Weiner and Barry Bateman, and John Carlin
Arundhati Roy: goddess of big ideas
Arundhati Roy’s fans have waited 17 years for a follow-up to her Booker-winning debut novel. Meanwhile she has thrown herself into political activism. She talks to Andrew Anthony
The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak – old Istanbul brought to life
A tale of Ottoman intrigue, youthful curiosity – and a boy’s love for an elephant. By Aditi Sriram
Stonewall’s Ruth Hunt: ‘I’m not interested in being the thought police’
Since she took over at the gay rights charity Stonewall, Ruth Hunt has received fierce criticism for being too timid. She talks to Decca Aitkenhead about life in the the era of gesture politics, the footballers who ask for her help and the battles she still wants to win
Thank You for the Moment is a painful read – and not just for Hollande
Christina Patterson: Notebook: François Hollande sounds very much like the man Valérie Trierweiler fell in love with. Philandering liar lies? Quelle surprise
Chilling history: the men who hunted the elusive Northwest Passage
From mythical maps to doomed expeditions and disputed cannibalism, a new exhibition chronicles man’s many attempts to find the Arctic channel, writes Maev Kennedy
Top 7 books on feeding the world
From eco-friendly farming techniques to the history of food activism – here’s what our readers recommend, writes Charlotte Seager
Support the unsung heroes of the Ebola crisis and we will beat this virus
Tony Blair: We need to outsmart Ebola to eradicate it. It is in rooms such as the Emergency Operation Centre in Liberia that we see how this can be done
Day of the Imprisoned Writer: Gao Yu
Elif Shafak’s open letter to the journalist Gao Yu celebrates the courageous writings for which she has been jailed in China, but which ‘echo far and wide’
My Thought for the Day: most of us are trying not to be dicks
Natalie Haynes: Notebook: We’re all people, not true or false believers, and ethical decisions are easier to reach if we start from that premise