A mathematics professor, who specialises in the idea of nothing, is approached by a would-be Bond villain with a dastardly plan of annihilation

But the big ideas seem mainly to consist in acquiring new skills – like boxing and baking – and flexing the imagination muscle

Nicholas Spencer insists they are – and his scientific knowledge is impressive. But do his religious arguments carry weight?

The Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum moves from São Paulo to ‘reforest’ herself in the Amazon, and slowly gains the trust of a wary, isolated tribal people

A French widower’s horror at his elder son’s involvement with the Front National grows ever deeper as violence escalates

After landing in Surat in 1615, Sir Thomas Roe was studiously ignored, and months passed before he was finally received by the Mughal emperor

Whether it was from hurt, spite or genuine fascist sympathies, his surprise at his family’s response simply confirms his stupidity

When a midwife in Nagyrév started doling out arsenic in 1911, dozens more women followed suit, until the death toll became impossible to ignore

New York’s Atelier 17 became a creative hub in the 1940s, where émigré Surrealists shared ideas with artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell

A marine biologist attempts to explore a newly discovered mid-Atlantic trench, but finds its destructive power both attracts and repels all who approach it

Ten women, on average, are killed there every day – and Cristina Rivera Garza’s investigation of her sister’s murder is met with the usual ‘silence of impunity’

Once a beacon at events with his sunglasses and white ponytail, the designer who revived many failing fashion houses has left nothing of himself behind

Charles I’s patronage of the arts, in particular, inspired his courtiers to commission their own family portraits and spend fortunes on acquiring Venetian masterpieces

When two teenage typists employed by Andy Warhol start tagging along to his amphetamine-fuelled parties, their lives spiral out of control

A mere fragment survives of the Greek philosopher’s work, but other sources attest to his bold ideas about the universe, human evolution and the weather

Painful memories resurface for a retired detective when his help is sought with a cold case murder

The actors who appear to be doing nothing are now the ones most revered – but acting is natural, says David Thomson: it’s what we all do all the time

The explorers’ journey to solve the great geographical puzzle of the Victorian age, and the bad blood it resulted in, is described in gripping detail by Candice Millard

For centuries, elderly women have been scorned as crones, hags and scolds – but it’s not only men who are belittling them now, says Victoria Smith