Simon Singh leads calls for politicians to get stalled Defamation Bill on to statute book

Hayat is a 12-year-old Pakistani American growing up in Midwest America: his is the typical suburban upbringing of barbecues and ball games. When his mother's beautiful friend Mina arrives, having fled an unhappy marriage in Pakistan, Hayat is beguiled. But Mina falls in love with Nathan, his father's Jewish colleague, and Hayat's bitterness – fuelled by the anti-Semitic sentiments of those in his community – leads him to an act that will rupture the relationship and indelibly mark his own life.

Where are you now and what can you see?

After a summer of sporting glory, might Britain punch above its weight in the intellectual Olympics, aka the Nobel Prizes? Team GB has landed 17 Nobels since 2000, among them Sir John Gurdon, who won the prize for physiology or medicine this week.

More than 800 writers, commentators and thinkers from 44 countries make up this year's festival, among them Nobel laureates, Booker and Pulitzer prize winners and poets laureate.

Four first-time novelists are in the running for the prestigious £50,000 literary award

Past winner Hilary Mantel and three former shortlisted authors found themselves among the 12 writers on the Man Booker Prize longlist today.

Best-selling novelist Sir Terry Pratchett has a new honour to go with the Bafta he won at the weekend: a pig named after one of his books.

Packed with shadowy oddness

Every summer, the press is briefly preoccupied by the question of what reading material we should take on holiday: books pages are crowded with recommendations by public and literary figures, while commentators are obliged to parse the book choices of our political leaders.