The age of horrorism (part one)

An exclusive essay by Martin Amis: On the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, one of Britain's most celebrated and original writers analyses - and abhors - the rise of extreme Islamism. In a penetrating and wide-ranging essay he offers a trenchant critique of the grotesque creed and questions the West's faltering response to this eruption of evil.

Book says CIA tried to provoke Saddam to war

More than a year before the invasion of Iraq the CIA devised a plan to use Iraqi exile fighters to seize an air base and declare a revolt against Saddam Hussein in the hope that his response would create a pretext for war, according to a book published tomorrow.

Pourquoi écrire en anglais?

This month's literary sensation in France is Les Bienveillantes, a 900-page novel about the Holocaust, written in French by an American, Jonathan Littell. Is it an advantage to write in a foreign language, asks John Mullan

Lie back and think of Jesus

After seven decades as an atheist, Fay Weldon has found God. But has she stopped believing in women? She tells Stuart Jeffries why they should stop complaining, be nicer to men and forget about orgasms.

Taking control of the ghosts

A new UK-based website displays the writing of survivors of torture and asylum seekers from all over the world, Mark Oliver reports.

9/11: the aftermath

Five years on and Joel Meyerowitz's epic images of Ground Zero remind us anew of the enormity of that day. The veteran photographer spent nine months at the site, shooting mangled steel, mountains of rubble, heroic human effort ... and, finally, an empty pit. As Peter Conrad writes, the images in his new book show destruction on a biblical scale.

Where have all the smokers gone?

David Boaz: Not to the pub, according to figures from Scotland, where anti-tobacco fascism is chipping away at freedom of choice.