Mohsin Hamid: ‘Pakistan and India are incredibly similar’

The author on why his novel How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a 'secular Sufi love poem' and why some fans of The Reluctant Fundamentalist would like more 'drugs and sex'

Anthony Lewis obituary

Pulitzer prizewinning US journalist with a deep belief in the importance of the law

Fifty Shades of Grey publisher Random House posts record profits

Operating profits leapt 75% at Bertelsmann-owned publisher in 2012 as Fifty Shades trilogy sold more than 70m copies. By Mark Sweney

Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic by Michael Axworthy – review

A study of Iran's recent past that challenges western misconceptions about the country impresses Jason Burke

Chinua Achebe’s anti-colonial novels are still relevant today

Nesrine Malik: He traced the dehumanising effects of western cultural arrogance that are still at work today in Iraq and Afghanistan

Testament of Youth: Vera Brittain’s classic, 80 years on

Elizabeth Day explores why this book about the futility of death remains one of the most powerful and widely read war memoirs of all time

Nigeria in mourning for Chinua Achebe

From the bookseller on the street to the literary glitterati – grief at the death of a man who so encapsulated the African experience

Chinua Achebe’s death: we have lost a brother

Wole Soyinka and JP Clark: Chinua was a man of resilient will. His works are testimony to the domination of the human spirit over the forces of repression

Noam Chomsky: ‘No individual changes anything alone’

Noam Chomsky is one of the world's most controversial thinkers. Now 84, he reflects on his life's work, on current events in Syria and Israel, and on the love of his life – his wife

Sugar, not fat, exposed as deadly villain in obesity epidemic

It's addictive and toxic, like a drug, and we need to wean ourselves off it, says US doctor

Jane Goodall admits to using web material without citation in new book

Seeds of Hope, written by renowned primatologist, uses passages from various websites without attribution

Ben Affleck may continue patriotic streak with movie of Bunker Hill

Warner Bros wants Affleck to direct movie of Nathaniel Philbrick's novel about battle that started the American revolution, writes Ben Child

Nothing to Lose, the bestselling book you’ve never heard of

A book by controversial Brazilian preacher Edir Macedo has sold a million copies. Who's buying it and why?

Lucretius, part 9: the calculating poet

Emma Woolerton: How to believe: Why did Lucretius choose to write in poetry? The answer lies in his evangelism for both Epicureanism and his own legacy