Hit Günter Grass with poetry, not a travel ban

Robert Sharp: Banning Grass from Israel amounts to state censorship. Let individuals make their own minds up – and protest if they wish

Why are English and American novels today so gutless?

Aditya Chakrabortty: The great Bengali thinker Rabindranath Tagore, born 150 years ago, was a passionate political author. Sadly, literary writers today seem to have no time for politics

Fancy a doomsday date? If things get really bad, it may be your best bet

Alice Bell: If you find people on Soulmates are poorly prepared for disaster, try hooking up with those serious about surviving an apocalypse

Günter Grass barred from Israel over poem

Nobel laureate, who says he had not meant to criticise Israel but Netanyahu government, declared persona non grata

Pakistan on the Brink by Ahmed Rashid – review

This authoritative study of Pakistan and its neighbours reveals bleak but undeniable truths about a region hanging in the balance, writes Jason Burke

Booker winner attacks bid to ban Israeli national theatre company from Globe

Stars of theatre and literature split over invitation to Israeli company to stage Merchant of Venice in London

Mirror Mirror is a poor reflection of real fairytales

Morven Crumlish: Julia Roberts's latest film is part of the trend to jazz up fairytales for modern tastes. But the original stories need no adaptation

New York Public Library’s plan to take books off shelves worries scholars

City institution's $300m transformation will make way for an up-to-date lending library, but some fear research will suffer

What’s wrong with parents helping their children to self-publish books?

Dan Gillmor: They know their children aren't writing great novels – but at least some parents are encouraging the creation generation

Günter Grass and changing German attitudes towards Israel

Hans Kundnani: The poet hopes his latest work, What Must Be Said, will prompt others to break their silence on Israel's nuclear weapons

Antonio Tabucchi obituary

Italian writer and academic with a deep love of the culture and language of Portugal

Russian publisher refuses to withdraw Stalin notebook from schools

Officials criticise school notebook featuring former dictator on cover as part of publisher's series of 20 'Great Russians'

What Debord can teach us about protest

Meghan Sutherland: The Big Ideas: The Society of the Spectacle urges us to rethink the relationship between activism, philosophy and pleasure in everyday life