Nasty, brutish and in translation
Love him or hate him, the guy is saying something(1)
Friday January 6th 2012
Michel Houellebecq's fiction
Leonardo da Vinci in London
Yes, it's worth it
The crowds are remarkable, but so is the reason to brave them(5)
Aesthetics and money
Fiddling with the mind
Old, expensive violins are not always better than new, cheap ones(14)
The Q&A: Jonathan Galassi
Why does art have to be mainstream to be significant?
A conversation about publishing and poetry with the head of Farrar, Straus and Giroux(4)
Muslims and the Koran
In the beginning were the words
Muslims revere the Koran. But its study is not taboo—and is in some quarters increasingly daring(286)
Algeria and France
War by any other name
A conflict that still reverberates today(40)
William Carlos Williams, American poet
On the outside looking in
Bad-tempered but brilliant
Quick study: Alastair Smith on political tyranny
How to be a dictator
Follow these simple guidelines for seizing and keeping power(71)
Japanese contemporary art
More than Murakami
Japan's other artists are starting to get noticed(4)
Foreign languages
The gift of tongues
What makes some people learn language after language?(111)
George Whitman
A bibliophile in Paris
The man behind the Shakespeare and Company bookstore liked to say that all humanity was his teacher(11)
Science fiction
Rejoice for Utopia is nigh!
Celebrating the birthday of a very important but not very good book(18)
- Also on this channel
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Sex and advertising
Retail therapyHow Ernest Dichter, an acolyte of Sigmund Freud, revolutionised marketing (28)
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Belgian beer
Brewed forceHow a small, unremarkable country came to dominate the world of beermaking (59)
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Remembering W.G. Sebald
An evening of lamentationsWhat a sad and odd cult he has created (4)
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Why China fails at football
Little red cardThe telling reasons why, at least in football, China is unlikely to rule the world in the near future (39)
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Books of the Year
Page-turnersOUR correspondents discuss a wide-ranging array of books chosen by The Economist as the year's best (2)
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Van Gogh: A Life
Mad, bad and dangerous to knowA NEW biography of Vincent van Gogh casts light on a lonely, bad-tempered alcoholic, who bit the hands that fed him. We invited its authors in to discuss their controversial findings (9)
Feature
New film: "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
The return of the sleuth
Two fine films to enjoy on these cold days
Music in Vietnam
Never (sort of) mind the bollocks!
Local kids are getting a chance to shake their rump
New film: "Shame"
'Tis a pity they are whores
Steve McQueen's visually beautiful but unsatisfying new feature
A Downing Street story
The game
A.D. Miller, our former political editor and one of our resident novelists, returns to his old hunting-ground. The newspaper and characters are imaginary. But quite a lot of the rest is realistic
Johnson
Our blog on the use (and abuse) of language in politics, society and culture around the world
Game theory
Our blog about the politics, economics, science and statistics of the games we play and watch
Highlights
The Q&A;: Terence Conran
Make things with your hands
A conversation with a pioneer of contemporary user-friendly design
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