Authors campaign to save Britain’s only gay bookshop
· Rising rents and internet blamed for closure threat · Ali Smith warns of 'political and human loss'
Inside the dragon’s lair
In our final extract from Anna Politkovskaya's last book, she describes her fateful meeting with the man who just this month became president of Chechnya.
‘Beslan is quietly going out of its mind’
In September 2004, Chechen terrorists took more than 1,200 people hostage in a school in Beslan, Russia. In the second of three extracts from the last book Anna Politkovskaya wrote before being murdered, she details the unbearable grief of a town that 'spends most of its time at the cemetery'
‘Fascism is in fashion’
Murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya was fearless in her pursuit of truth. In this shocking extract from her final book, she chronicles the death of Russian democracy.
In praise of Jane
Female self-worth could have been invented by Jane Austen. No wonder we still value her.
The prince married a man, and lived happily ever after
Religious groups attack circulation of books raising gay issues among primary school pupils.
The Captain paid the price of this retreat into unreality
Marina Hyde: When a superpower starts having its own Deirdre Barlow moments, you know it's no longer a land fit for superheroes.
Heard the one about the atheist who scorned a comedian for his belief in a comforting God?
· Spat erupts over comment in comic's autobiography· Biologist and stand-up vie for literary prize
Boys! Boys! Boys!
Spots, heartbreak and batwing jumpers ... Esther Addley celebrates 40 stormy years of teenage magazine comic strips.
Jean Baudrillard
Philosopher and sociologist who blurred the boundaries between reality and simulation.
Lothar-Günther Buchheim
Obituary: Author of Das Boot, one of the best German books about the second world war.