His best-selling novels illuminate the shadowy organisations that supposedly run the world. But Dan Brown was “honoured” to receive an invitation to join the Freemasons, the arcane fraternity whose tentacles are said to extend into the highest echelons of power.

The Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell and his wife have co-translated an acclaimed book, written by a Japanese child, about his experience of growing up with autism.

Hugh Grant said last night it was "fun" to bring out a darker side for his multiple roles in the screen adaptation of Cloud Atlas, rather than the bumbling English gent he normally plays.

His most famous book found Jesus’s bloodline, now Dan Brown is taking his readers into hell following the surprise announcement of a new book, inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Apart from the mostly-forgotten musical Nine, the last most of us saw of Daniel Day-Lewis was him screaming "I. Drink. Your. Milkshake!" into Paul Dano's face. The Oscar-winner's next role is something of a departure from oil prospector Daniel Plainview – he's the star of Steven Spielberg's forthcoming Lincoln (out 25 January), a biopic of Abraham Lincoln's battle to end slavery.

Hollywood actor Tom Hanks will make his debut on Broadway playing a tabloid journalist in the play Lucky Guy.

Author EL James - behind publishing phenomenon Fifty Shades Of Grey - has become the first writer to see three of her books each sell in excess of 100,000 paperback copies in a week.

Starring: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson

Lock this one up, and throw away the key

Extremely long and in need of a good slap

I've always viewed the Oscars roughly the way I view Formula One: I'm quite interested in knowing the results, but the process by which they're produced is basically unwatchable. Over here, where things are still amateur enough that something is liable to go wrong – see Freddie Starr's recent inscrutable performance at the Comedy Awards – they're still reasonably entertaining.

Nasa is investigating whether the Apollo 13 commander, James Lovell, has the right to sell a checklist from the flight that includes his handwritten calculations crucial in guiding the damaged spacecraft back to Earth.

Hollywood is abuzz with the latest hot coupling and it's not even talent bed-hopping causing the chins to wag.