Very Boring Women
Sally Feldman is unsatisfied by Forster's cast of vague characters
Culture
Visionary Grandeur
Michael Levey on Michelangelo, men and mankind
Reason meets faith
Haydn Mason reads an account of a Baroque clash of hearts and minds
Empire Apart
Hazhir Teimourian examines the insularity of the Ottoman Empire
All or nothing
John Maddox is fascinated by a never-ending story
Mother of Pearl
An exclusive poem by Ruth Padel
Wild Vagaries
Jim Herrick considers the two sides of August Strindberg
Throwing Up
Chris Paling is left queasy by Alice Walker
Heavenly bodies
Laurie Taylor finds himself at a feast that's impossible to swallow
Beats, rhymes and grime
As record companies play safe by producing bland supermarket pop, Caspar Melville hopes an unlikely contender - British hip hop - will succeed in bringing music back to life