The kids’ book that could make a president
Derek Draper: Meghan McCain has eulogised her father in an illustrated children's book called My Dad, John McCain
Of ivory towers and coups d’etat
David Shariatmadari: Ann Lambton, one of the world's great Iranologists, has died. What drew her to the subject, and what was her legacy?
Porn claims outrage German Kafka scholars
British 'preacher of hate' attracts bitter criticism for controversial book on novelist's erotica addiction
We need a clash over free speech
Sunny Hundal: The decision not to publish a novel about the prophet's youngest wife only delays the fight over free speech that we need
A tarnished jewel
Tabish Khair: Withdrawing a novel about Muhammad's youngest bride will stoke publicity: after all, the west has a long tradition of denigrating Islam. It's just that now, no one can ignore it
The laureate of all Arabs
Mahmoud Darwish is dead, but the voice of the Palestinian resistance will live on in all of us, says Ahdaf Soueif
How to kill the queen
Extract from The Last Cigarette, the memoirs of Simon Gray who died last week
Mahmoud Darwish
Obituary: Poet, author and politician who helped to forge a Palestinian consciousness after the six-day war in 1967
I refuse to dismiss writers who inspired me, even if others do
Henry Porter: Today, it is almost impossible to capture what Alexander Solzhenitsyn meant
Words of warming
As the world hots up, so does the market for books about climate change. Tim Flannery looks at the latest works on the crisis and sizes up their solutions
Novel on prophet’s wife pulled for fear of backlash
The Jewel of the Medina was to have been released on August 12 by Ballantine Books
Scribe of the gulag
Anne Applebaum: It wasn't Solzhenitsyn's personality that forced people to question their values, but his words
The other Solzhenitsyn
William Harrison: Praise his critique of the Soviet system certainly, but remember that it was informed by a deeply reactionary pan-Slavism
Full frontal snogging and other stories
The movie Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is based on a book many adolescent girls know by heart. Alice Wignall explores the power of teenage literary passions
Eaten up
Ed Pilkington talks to the soothsayer of agro-economics, Raj Patel, about what will happen when the food finally runs out