Man Without God
When did the West become post-Christian?
Politics, Ideas and the Arts
Our love affair with Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy's study of adultery is widely thought of as a romantic work. But don't send it to your lover
A poet casts a prosaic die
John Fuller's new volume of prose poems are grimmer and harder to read than his previous works
Getting On
John Betjeman was a poet who knew how to work society
Strange Gods and the Old Devils
They cast their literary spells over a generation, but have Martin Amis and Ian McEwan merit as moralists?
A Role Model for Boris
Vincent Azoulay's biography of Pericles is written with precision and avoids clichés
Quotidian but Quite Quotable
This latest volume in the superb Cambridge edition of Beckett's letters discredits the writer's diffidence
Nadine Gordimer: ‘Comrade Madam’
A personal reminiscence of the Nobel laureate, whose anti-apartheid novels masked her own ruthless ideology
He Will Remember Them
Adam Nicolson's book on Homer, and why he matters, overflows with power, confidence and the joy of self-discovery
Piecing it together
Although Howard Jacobson's latest novel is vastly unlike his previous comic works, it just may be his masterpiece
Jonathan Miller: One Man, Two Cultures
As he turns 80 this summer, this remarkable polymath deserves to be fêted as a populariser of science and pioneer in the arts
Poet Laureate of the English Shires
A hundred and fifty years after his death, John Clare remains the greatest lyricist of country life