The political Bible, part 4: toleration

Nick Spencer: How to believe: If the Bible has the logic of intolerance, through adiaphora – 'things indifferent' – it also bears the language of tolerance

Polish journalist Adam Michnik receives Goethe medal

Former dissident and now publisher of Poland's biggest newspaper honoured for work for international cultural relations

Arab spring has created ‘intelligence disaster’, warns former CIA boss

Michael Scheuer says rendition should be brought back as lack of intelligence has left UK and US unable to monitor militants

Libyan revolution has made democracy real and tangible idea, says novelist

Hisham Matar speaks at Edinburgh international book festival after rebel cousin shot dead in Gaddafi's compound

The short life and cruel death of Libyan freedom fighter Izz al-Arab Matar

Booker prize-shortlisted Libyan novelist Hisham Matar writes movingly of how his cousin was killed by a sniper in Muammar Gaddafi's compound

Condoleezza Rice’s ‘candid’ memoir to shed light on Bush administration

Rice's second autobiography will take us 'into secret negotiating rooms' where global peace hung in the balance, publishers say

Anders Breivik massacre will change crime writing, says author

Jo Nesbø says his country's reaction to the killings made him proud to be Norwegian

The novel that has got young lovers declaring their passion with padlocks

Thousands are copying the protagonists of Federico Moccia's bestseller I Want You by attaching padlocks to bridges

Italy’s bridges weighed down by locks of love

Lovers write their names on a padlock, attach it to a bridge and throw keys in the river in romantic act inspired by novel

The transfiguration of Philip K Dick

Roz Kaveney: A Bible annotated by the prolific science fiction writer is unlikely to reveal more than the books articulating his spiritual vision

Rogues and knaves: insulting clergy is a historic pastime

Andrew Brown: A book about ordinary people's belief in the 16th and 17th centuries shows modern rejection of Christianity is nothing new

The political Bible, part 3: how Britain came to accept democracy

Nick Spencer: How to believe: The wide dissemination of the scriptures by Reformation Protestants led to the development of more political ideas

The capacity for evil can spread like an epidemic

Elisabeth Young-Bruehl: The Big Ideas: The thoughtlessness of the controversy over Arendt's book on Eichmann only reinforces her point about 'the banality of evil'

The Taliban’s attack on the British Council only hurts Afghanistan

Kamila Shamsie: Bombing the British Council is not a brave reminder of freedom from colonial influence, but a sad attack on education

Steve McQueen to direct 12 Years a Slave

British film-maker casts Chiwetel Ejiofor in true story of mixed-race man abducted and forced into bondage in Louisiana