Books

From the Pilgrims to Star Trek, every promised land ends up looking suspiciously like the one we left behind

The hammer of high interest rates is no longer the way to deal with pressure on prices

Richard Drax’s family built their riches on Barbados’s most infamous plantation. He says it’s all just history

Serious books are being written about the pop icons. But do we risk letting light in on the magic?

How did an inquiry into the laws of nature produce a form of technology capable of annihilating civilisation?

The philosopher’s 1981 book After Virtue suggested that modern morality is fragmented and rootless – an argument that still stands today

Lewis’s new book, The Genius Myth, skewers rebel innovators who come to believe they can do no wrong. Remind you of anyone?

Atheists have a simple answer: it is evidence that God doesn’t exist, while believers say the gift of human free will brings with it the possibility of doing evil

It’s possible to feel the deepest sympathy for Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis and still be appalled by the cover-up of his cognitive decline

First, he took over the social media platform – then the social media platform took over him

A book that finds the joy in Europe’s lines of division

Andres Veiel’s magnificent documentary lets Riefenstahl, in her interviews, recordings and archived files, speak for herself

The elemental works of the Japanese ukiyo-e artist are celebrated in a new book and exhibition at the British Museum

This stunning exhibition is the first London show dedicated to Utagawa Hiroshige’s prolific creativity in more than 25 years

However his works might have been assembled and whatever dissembling he did when talking about his life, Jerzy Kosiński was a master storyteller

Evil gods and terrifying clawed beasts have haunted the human imagination for thousands of years. But what are monsters now, in this age of science?

At its heart of this film is the megawatt screen charisma of Michael B Jordan and a deep appreciation of the blues

Reducing the complex history of Israel and Palestine to a battle of good vs evil is wilfully misleading. No wonder Trump has endorsed it

The most important advice I’ve ever given myself about reading a book: if at first you don’t succeed, give up

From Titus Andronicus to Goldfinger and Dolores Umbridge, the deranged president resembles a rogue’s gallery of literary characters - and none of them are heroes

The Austrian-born art historian’s bestselling books revolutionised our understanding of artistic perception

From where authors stayed to where they set their novels, a selection of reading rooms for travelling bookworms

In an extract from their new book Abundance, two leading US thinkers set out the fundamental problem with mainstream beliefs – on both the left and right

James Bailey’s new book attempts to finally answer humanity’s oldest and most profound question

Barry Levinson’s true-crime gangster story is a pleasing encapsulation of five decades of cinematic culture

Simon Hart's book tells the inside story of the final years of Tory rule. But is the former chief whip entirely free of blame?

The Frenchman always stressed that he was a writer of science fact, not science fiction

The siege of Leningrad brought desperation, degradation and death – and a host of stories which shaped a future dictator

Throughout the 20th century, the currents of global change pulsed through the city. One man was at the centre of it all

Forty years since his first feature film, Steven Soderbergh has rarely been better

Hollywood on the Tiber lifts the lid of Rome’s riotous postwar film industry