Slapstick and pratfalls: Laurie Taylor interviews John Mortimer
John Mortimer tells Laurie Taylor why old age is a farce
Culture
Heaven scent?
As the long awaited film version of Patrick Süskind's celebrated novel is released in the UK, Sally Feldman sniffs out the sacred and profane promise of perfume
End Game: Mixed feelings
Emotionally subnormal and proud of it. That's Laurie Taylor
The Amalgamation Polka by Stephen Wright
Jim Herrick dances the amalgamation polka with Stephen Wright
Logics of Disintegration: Post-Structuralist Thought and the Claims of Critical Theory by Peter Dews
Daniel Miller reconsiders post-structuralism with Peter Dews
Genesis Machines: The New Science of Biocomputation by Martyn Amos
Bill Thompson investigates bio-computing with Martyn Amos
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
Philip Womack is unilluminated by Richard Powers
Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum
Michael Binyon visits the Victorian spritualists with Deborah Blum
Natural truth
Marybeth Hamilton celebrates the passion of a record collector
Love, life, Goethe
The great German writer was that wonderful contradiction, a romantic rationalist, says John Armstrong