Hot flushes
Laurie Taylor remembers a bad period
Culture
Design for living
Bauhaus architects wanted to build a more rational world. Hugh Pearman explores the links between humanism and the Modernist movement
Supreme being
Ashley Kahn on Coltrane's spiritual journey
Fail better
Nina Power says the centenary of Samuel Beckett's birth is worth celebrating
Sandals and spooks
Why did the British secret services take such a keen interest in the activities of folk icon Ewan MacColl? Ken Hunt digs in the archives
Projecting the human
Andrew Tudor searches for the soul of cinema
Fiendish summer quiz
Win a host of prizes
Lost plot
Brenda Maddox reviews Mary Loudon's memoir of a lost sister
Goodbye to all that
Michael Bywater misses his ivory tower
Frozen waste
Stuart Sim reviews the latest from an up-and-coming Canadian novelist