The six daughters of Lord and Lady Redesdale – Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah – were the most talked-about British family of the inter-war years.

With his relaxed style, detailed knowledge and musical passion he was a natural on TV and radio

The voice is scrunched a little tighter now, and frayed, and the tunes seem worn to the bone, but… Well, you can't keep a good man down.

The story so far: man meets woman and the pair soon discover that their singing voices have more chemistry than a science lab.

Rachel Heath begins in similar territory to Maggie O'Farrell's Instructions for a Heatwave, with an elderly parent who goes missing one day for no apparent reason, but she lacks O'Farrell's edge and psychological complexity.

This superb novella, a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, feels like a doorstopper, so huge is it in its concerns.

Beauty lies buried under brutal history

The man’s lawyer stressed the case was not covered by the shadow of eugenics

Retirees turning their back on the housing market in the pursuit of ready cash to settle debts are paying the price in accommodation costs, the latest figures suggest.

In Southall, women take on border agency officers in a show of defiance

Amazing to think of how much an audience never sees during an opera performance – or never used to see. Live cinema relays from the world's leading opera houses can now convey a level of close-up detail rarely visible in a theatre. But that, says the soprano Danielle de Niese (pictured), brings challenges of its own. Especially if the costumes are none too substantial.

Friday

This outstanding Israeli novel breaks taboos and tells tough truths about the ties that bind

Comparisons to the Kennedys and the Bushes are exaggerated, but if Silvio Berlusconi’s criminal conviction makes it politically impossible for him to continue at the head of his party after the summer, there is a strong chance that another Berlusconi will take his place – Marina Berlusconi, his eldest daughter, who at present heads both Fininvest, his financial holding company, and Mondadori, Italy’s biggest book publisher, acquired by her father in controversial circumstances.