Gender balancing the books

We counted the numbers of male and female reviewers and authors under review in the major UK books sections for a month in 2012 and again for a month this year. Alex Clark reflects on why the review pages still bestow 'secondhand status' on women

Apple in court over ebook price-fixing accusations

Company has refused to settle over claims that it conspired with publishers to raise the price of products in the US

Law Society defies scholars with Mendham Collection auction

Selection of rare Reformation-era bibles and tracts to go under the hammer, but critics denounce it as 'act of vandalism'

Poem of the week: two cinquains by Adelaide Crapsey

The unjustly neglected early modernist developed from haiku her own form, a vessel for pared-down vernacular observation

Oksa Pollock: everything you need to know about the ‘French Harry Potter’

A self-published children's book, which took France by storm, has arrived in Britain. Will it have the same impact here?

The Silence and the Roar by Nihad Sirees – review

A translation of Nihad Sirees's allegory of his native Syria could not be more timely, writes Ben East

The Last Train to Zona Verde by Paul Theroux – review

A disastrous African trip by the veteran travel writer is unsettling but always riveting, writes Robin McKie

Stars urge Alicia Keys to drop Israel gig

Roger Waters and Alice Walker pen open letters asking Keys to join cultural boycott of 'unjust and unbelievably evil' Israel

Edinburgh international film festival announces lineup for 2013

New British films and American independents loom large in the Scottish cinema showcase, which also features two retrospectives and a revival of The Gorbals Story

Italian literati in campaign to save Trieste’s historic Caffè San Marco

Coffee shop has been a destination for writers and poets for decades and lists James Joyce as one of its famous patrons

Eureka! My quest for an authentic liberal Christianity

Theo Hobson: In the first of a two-part series, I look at the tensions between the rational and ritualistic traditions. Next week: the way forward

How Uganda’s female writers found their voice

A pioneering foundation called Femrite has helped a new generation of women tell often harrowing stories of daily life in the country, writes Elizabeth Day

Google defends listing extremist websites in its search results

Eric Schmidt tells Hay festival that legal information 'even if it's despicable, will be indexed', and may help track terrorists

‘Hobbitses’ and Frankenstein: how pop culture’s words become official

Kory Stamper: Though fantasy and sci-fi have invented hundreds of new words, only a few pass muster to make it into the dictionary