Sins of omission and myths of the Enlightenment.

The loose-knittedness of Alexandria encourages Jack Hornerism. For me, the richest plums in the pudding are the digressions on Stothard’s background.

For everyone who is exasperated by Morley’s oblique, mazy, impressionistic style, there will be others who will be seduced by its heft, even if they don’t realise quite how good it is.

A fascinating psychological portrait of a woman who seems to feel most alive when under fire.

Asunder communicates its ideas, and their supporting cultural references, subtly and efficiently.

Reviewed: Peter Pan by Régis Loisel.

Sarah Churchwell's Careless People is as mixed and inclusive as F Scott Fitzgerald’s scrapbooks. Both offer 1922 as the chief exhibit to explain the jazz age.

In our hypermediated world, where we choose to bestow our attention has become a matter of commercial interest. Joshua Cohen, an American novelist and critic, has drawn up a history of attention in short, attention-grabbing episodes, from the dawn of writing to the encroachment of the internet over mind.

Rachel Kushner’s new novel bursts forth with life, anecdote and evocation. She is a writer infinitely addicted to noticing, but despite her energy and skill, the book fails to produce the required momentum.

Hayley Campbell reviews Gerald Shea's Song Without Words.

Greg Bellow, son of Saul Bellow and author of Saul Bellow's Heart: A Son's Memoir, on family, psychotherapy and writing.

In recent years, with the help of a substantial capital injection from the EU, Liverpool has undergone a long-overdue renaissance. A friend of mine once asked the city’s former Anglican bishop David Sheppard how he explained the revival, to which Sheppard replied: “We stopped feeling sorry for ourselves.”

Catherine Dawson Scott, writer and co-founder of International Pen, describes the poet Charlotte Mew in her diary of 1913 as “an imp with brains”. Mew was certainly doll-like in stature: she wore size-two boots, which she bought at F Pinet in Mayfair. It seems extraordinary that this poet, held in such high esteem by many of her now famous contemporaries, is so little talked about today.

One summer, Rebecca Solnit received an enigmatic gift: a hundred pounds of apricots, harvested from the garden of her mother’s former house. That summer, Solnit discovered that she had pre-cancerous cells in her breast – a prelude to major surgery. In less original hands, this would be the beginning of a misery memoir.