What we’ve lost
Riverbend, 'Girl Blog from Iraq' as she dubs herself, was a computer programmer before the war - not any more. In her diary of the occupation, she describes the new, confined way of life, especially for women, amid the mayhem.
Interest grows in solving cryptic CIA puzzle after link to Da Vinci Code
The race to find the secrets of Kryptos - a sculpture inside a courtyard at the CIA's headquarters containing one of the world's most baffling puzzles - may be reaching a climax following a surge in interest since Dan Brown hid references to it on the cover of The Da Vinci Code.
Did Simone de Beauvoir’s open ‘marriage’ make her happy?
But did Simone de Beauvoir's scandalous open 'marriage' to Sartre make her happy, asks Lisa Appignanesi.
I saw hate in a graveyard – Stephen Fry
Actor shaken by anti-semitic outrage as he explored his Jewish past.
Harry Potter and the missing gun
Another dramatic chapter in the life of the world's most famous boy wizard unfolded when armed police were called to a reported shoot-out over an attempt to sell a stolen copy of the new JK Rowling novel.
‘His voice is unique’
Comment: Kadare is nothing like what we mean by a "contemporary" writer, though he has always reacted to his times. To read him is instead to see the pendulum of centuries of Balkan history, and of Europe's past and future, swing back and forth.
From magic to makeover
Natasha Walter: Chicklet lit's tacky storylines sell girls short. They also strengthen the reading divide between the sexes.
France is an oak tree
Aristocratic former diplomat and Napoloeon expert Dominique de Villepin was yesterday named French prime minister. His 2002 book, The Cry of the Gargoyle, offers an insight into the way he views the nation he will govern. Here we publish an extract ...
The digested read
The European constitution, in the style of the original.
Women are still a closed book to men
Research shows men mainly read works by other men.