Restorative justice
Civilised people balance the short-term interest of one generation against the values enshrined in the past, and the right of future generations to share that past
Feeling the benefit
When my Employment Support Allowance was stopped, I was angry and upset. But looking back, it was a turning point in my life
Novel distractions
Procrastination used to be an honest business – cleaning the bath, putting CDs back in their cases. Now we have Google
Jawaab explained
It is not easy to be young, British and Muslim. Since the atrocities of 9/11 and 7/7, the media has…
An empire within an empire
William Dalrymple’s review of The Tears of the Rajas by Ferdinand Mount reminds us that the British empire was erected on the dead bodies of hundreds of thousands of its Indian subjects
Women take wing
A review of Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes by Virginia Nicholson reveals that it wasn’t just men blocking female emancipation: women themselves were equally to blame
A lone Crusader declares holy war
A review of One of Us by Åsne Seierstad reveals a lonely misfit set on a murderous mission to purify the Nordic race
Shades of the prison house
Reviewing the Ancient Art of Growing Old by Tom Payne, Richard Ingrams remembers sweating blood at school translating the smug, self-satisfied Cicero
Good old bad old days
A review of Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn celebrates London’s gay 1930s society where much is shrouded in secrecy
A choice of first novels
Keith Miller is impressed by the latest first novels - but deplores the way publishers oversell them
Rescuing the past from the teeth of time
A review of Ruth Scurr’s biography of John Aubrey tells how the distinguished scholar and antiquarian, friend of Pepys and Hobbes, died in penury and was buried in an unmarked grave
Majesty of the malls
Nicky Haslam admires the thoroughly extraordinary Mary Portas, monarch of the malls
Decidedly fishy
Fish become humans, humans fish in the fairy-tale world of David Vann’s poetic novel, Aquarium
Shock and awe
As the current V&A exhibition, Savage Beauty, should show, the British bad boy of fashion really did have imagination and vision
The power of nightmares
Plus: a Serpentine Gallery survey of Leon Golub’s large scale compositions on the atrocities of war that are occasionally memorable but often show a lack of skill
Brought to book
The end is so sentimental and so Hollywood you'd be far better off reading the original Irène Némirovsky novel
Suite nothings
Plus: a new Mugabe drama at the Gate Theatre that, amazingly, doesn’t offer a single piece of data about the play’s subject
Gone girl
But there’s dynamism and excitement aplenty in The English Concert’s performance of Hercules at the Barbican
Passage to India
Plus: after a month away without radio, Kate Chisholm didn’t expect to hear that half of Ambridge had been destroyed
The Turner effect
Plus: BBC2’s new sitcom, Nurse, suggests that Paul Whitehouse is a bit of a genius
