Google settles dispute over online books

Google has reached a landmark agreement with US authors and publishers to make millions of books available online. By Mark Sweney

The great man theory of John McCain

Jeremy Lott: Meghan McCain's new book argues that her father should be president simply because he loves his country

Needle Sarkozy and he’ll see you in court

Lizzy Davies: The French have become wearily accustomed to seeing their diminutive head of state throw his toys out of the Elysee's gilt-encrusted pram

The new star of romantic fiction: ex-SAS hardman Chris Ryan

Aida Edemariam: The former SAS soldier has written The Fisherman's Daughter under a female pseudonym, Molly Jackson

‘People say I’m strident’

Interview: He sold 1.5m copies of The God Delusion. So why does Richard Dawkins think science is losing its war with religion?

In praise of … New York Review of Books

Editorial: The New York Review of Books is a misleading title. It is edited in New York and does, indeed, review books. But it is far more than that

Ian McEwan condemns ‘thuggery’ of Neapolitan mafia

Novelist adds his name to a 200,000-strong petition in support of author Roberto Saviano, and compares mafia threats to tactics of 'extremist religious groups'

Roger Hall

Obituary: US spy whose memoir lampooned wartime espionage in the OSS

Atlas reveals how you are likely to die

New maps of mortality chart how geographical differences influence the main causes of death

In praise of … Roberto Saviano

Editorial: Few authors have rubbed the mafia up the wrong way quite as badly as the author of Gomorrah

Roars of anger

Aravind Adiga's debut novel, The White Tiger, won the Booker prize this week. But its unflattering portrait of India as a society racked by corruption and servitude has caused a storm in his homeland. He tells Stuart Jeffries why he wants to expose the country's dark side

Gomorra film author to leave Italy after mob death threats

Roberto Saviano says two years living under close protection have left him 'suspicious and wary'

Gomorrah author to flee Italy after death threats

Roberto Saviano has told a newspaper he is to flee Italy as life spent hiding from the mafia becomes intolerable

The struggle of memory against forgetting

Maya Jaggi: Milan Kundera denies a claim he betrayed a spy in Communist Czechoslovakia, but lying now would be the greater betrayal

In praise of … The Great Crash 1929

Editorial: This time round, the world must come together and disprove JK Galbraith's conclusion