Abandoned VIP stairway on a road at the airport in Sirte ©Reuters ESSAY May 12, 2012

Gaddafi’s last stand

Michael Peel examines three accounts of the sudden unravelling of Muammer Gaddafi’s brutal regime in Libya

The Annawadi slum in Mumbai ©Getty NON-FICTION May 12, 2012

Life on the edge

Katherine Boo’s ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’, which shows despair and dreams in an Indian megacity, is as vivid as great fiction

©Shonagh Rae FICTION May 12, 2012

‘Wolf Hall’: the sequel

Public and private passions colour Hilary Mantel’s new novel ‘Bringing up the Bodies’, a masterful follow-up to her Man Booker prize-winner, writes James Naughtie

Cover of 'End this Depression Now!' by Paul Krugman NON-FICTION May 12, 2012

Austerity bites

Paul Krugman’s ‘End this Depression Now!’ has a good case against spending cuts, but proposals on economy revival are modest

Cover of 'La Roja: A Journey Through Spanish Football' by Jimmy Burns NON-FICTION May 12, 2012

Pitch battles

Jimmy Burns chronicles the bitter rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona in this vivid survey of Spanish football

Cover of ‘Flight’ by Adam Thorpe FICTION May 12, 2012

Thrill in the air

Adam Thorpe’s thriller ‘Flight’ tells the turbulent tale of a freight pilot hunted by killers after getting off a job delivering dodgy goods

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the Apple Nano NON-FICTION May 12, 2012

Keep it simple

‘Insanely Simple’, by ad agency executive Ken Segall, tries to explain Apple’s incredible success through one attribute: simplicity itself

Cover of ‘Heft’ by Liz Moore FICTION May 12, 2012

Heavy duty

Liz Moore’s ‘Heft’ is a poignant novel about how an obese, unemployed professor emerges from the solitude of his Brooklyn home

Cover of 'Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady' by Kate Summerscale NON-FICTION May 12, 2012

Secret testimony

Kate Summerscale’s ‘Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace’ treats an adultery case as a detective story that sheds light on Victorian life

Cover of ‘Ignorance’ by Michèle Roberts FICTION May 12, 2012

Survival instincts

‘Ignorance’, the new novel by Michèle Roberts, depicts the fate of four women in a French village under Nazi occupation

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