This interview should have cleared up any lingering doubt...

What drives this list is the fear of dying with regrets for what you haven’t yet done

This is one of those moments which people like Richard Dawkins must relish, when the secular and the sacerdotal collide with a screech of metal.

Holy media moguls! Has Rupert Murdoch discovered his spiritual side? Will the global maestro of plain dealing, pragmatism and unfettered capitalism reveal a mystical side to his thunderstruck associates?

How Italian do you like your Italian restaurant? Do you enjoy the full theatricals of gesticulating padrone, chequered napery and yard-long pepper grinder? Would you prefer the Milanese chic of L'Anima? How about the small-plates-of-something-from-Liguria connoisseurship of Bocca di Lupo?

Some 50 years ago, Billy Liar became a cinematic hero – but, argues John Walsh, it was Julie Christie's Liz who hinted at a new way of life

But whoever said you had to be nice to sell books? John Walsh reports

Once the sun came out, the great British public's fiercely held political allegiances seemed soon forgotten

Is this how to sell Robinson Crusoe and Bleak House to a new generation? To package them like pulp fiction (complete with cheap-looking yellow-sprayed colour edges), give them a raunchy cover and précis the contents with a trashy tagline? Oldcastle Books thinks so. Its “Pulp! The Classics” imprint has already brought out retro versions of Pride and Prejudice (“Lock Up Your Daughters – Darcy’s In Town!”), Robinson Crusoe (“Solitude Was Driving Him Nuts!”) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (“Murder… Mystery… Walkies!”) with cover art by David Mann, and inevitably it has turned its sights on The Great Gatsby, to coincide with the movie’s release on 15 May.

Red leather banquettes, brass rails and bentwood stools...John Walsh examines a winning formula.