Tony’s toxic legacy
He’d just about sold the idea that businesses weren’t intrinsically evil. Then he started one of his own…
Gay right
The Front National now has the support of a quarter of Paris’s gay voters – and only 16 per cent of the straight ones
The war on fraternities
Just because the biggest scandal involving a fraternity house has fallen to bits, that doesn’t mean universities are stopping their crackdown
Middle Age cred
Johannes Fried’s newly translated history proves that the Middle Ages were not an ideas-free zone
An innocent abroad
Quite a Good Time to be Born is the memoir of a good man written by a great novelist
Too cute
Adam Thirlwell’s ‘tale of suburban sex and violence’ has lost whatever charm his narrative voice once possessed
See how clever
Scott Blackwood’s ultra-clever See How Small is a novel written to be studied, not read
Recent crime fiction
Jeff Noon on Peter May’s Runaway, Dan Kavanagh’s Putting The Boot In, Ferdinand von Schirach’s The Girl Who Wasn’t There, Eric Lundgren’s The Facades
No mappa mundi
Benjamin B. Olshin’s The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps is an unconvincing speculation – but a reminder of a great story does not convince our reviewer
Time trials
In The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time, Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin attempt to bring modesty to physics
Battle scars
Christopher Elliott’s High Command is a study of what’s wrong at the MoD, and an excellent primer for the Chilcot report
Friend or foe?
In Tolstoy’s False Disciple, Alexandra asks many questions, but doesn’t always answer them
Cellulite factor
The British have never warmed to the Flemish master’s fleshy paintings. But then neither did he have a very high opinion of us
Depicting the Prophet
The Koran has no injunction against depicting Mohammed. In fact, within Islam, there’s a rich tradition of painting the Prophet
Heads will roll
By all means go to hear the thrilling Jonas Kaufmann but don’t expect a night of theatrical profundity
Stolen pleasures
I’ve illegally downloaded hundreds of pounds worth of classical music and I feel no remorse
