The Independent

On the agenda: Latin American art; I Blame Coco; eating al fresco at the National; hotguysreadingbooks.com; Wychwood Festival; Martin Margiela

30 May 2010 12:00 AM

We're all set to marvel at Margiela, blame Coco and have a picnic with Alan Bennett

Leon Fleisher: 'My life fell apart...'

30 May 2010 12:00 AM

At 16, he was 'the pianistic find of the century'. There followed a sparkling two decades before his right hand seized up mysteriously. Now, after a 40-year battle to regain mastery of the keyboard, Leon Fleisher is headlining next month's Aldeburgh Festival. Lynne Walker hears his extraordinary story

Playing Days, By Benjamin Markovits

30 May 2010 12:00 AM

This account of life with an anonymous German basketball team offers an astute anatomy of failure

The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome, by Roland Chambers

30 May 2010 12:00 AM

The Arthur Ransome of popular imagination is as buoyant as one of his lake-lashed dinghies. He created, in the Swallows and Amazons series, a 1920s halcyon dream-world anchored to a permanently playful summer holiday. The Lakes of Ransome lore remain a landscape where nature is a cipher for innocence, toil and decency. It is, as biographer Roland Chambers states, an idyll of "cotton tents and grog and tea at four, and children who say 'jolly' and play by the rules; well-behaved children who rise early and know how to do things, tie knots and sail a boat." That legacy still fills the coffers of the thriving tourist industry of Windermere and Coniston Water.

Tony Parsons: Punch drunk love

30 May 2010 12:00 AM

On completing his trilogy about modern masculinity, the novelist and amateur pugilist Tony Parsons opens up about marriage, parenthood and failing to live up to his father

Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel

30 May 2010 12:00 AM

Don't be fooled by these talking animals – the author of 'Life of Pi' is up to some cruel literary tricks

The new plastic surgery

30 May 2010 12:00 AM

Forget a little nip and tuck: all that's needed for a fresh look this season is a littlePerspex. From understated bangles at Prada to fabulous festival-wear at DSquared, it's never been so fashionable to fake it, says Rhiannon Harries

The big march: seeking out the UK's best gardens

30 May 2010 12:00 AM

While the rest of the country is glued to the World Cup, Emma Townshend will be traversing the UK exploring the best that the new 'Good Gardens Guide' has to offer

Ali Hewson: Edun regained

30 May 2010 12:00 AM

They live in a mass slum; she lives in luxury. But Ali Hewson – perhaps better known as Mrs Bono – is determined to bring a little bit of paradise to these African lives;and in so doing, she is breathing life back into her ethical-fashion company

Rhiannon Harries: the last thing we need is another Tesco Metro

30 May 2010 12:00 AM

The sign on my local grocery store reads "Food and Wine at Clapton Village", although a quick glance at its environs reveals that Clapton is anything but a sleepy hamlet. In fact, it's an area in Hackney, north-east London, abutting a road that used to better known as Murder Mile. Yet to call it a "village shop" somehow seems accurate, providing as it does the sole physical place in which an otherwise fragmented multicultural community rubs shoulders and, hell, even talks to one another occasionally.