Alec Ash

Award-winning British physicist, Athene Donald, tells us how to fight preconceived ideas about gender and suggests reading that could inspire women to pursue careers in science.

Evelyn Waugh’s biographer, Selina Hastings, explores the decadence of the young and rich in 1920s London, and tells us about the author’s rebellious youth, bullying disposition and later breakdown – as well as just how much (and early) he drank

Former editor-in-chief of The Guardian talked to us in 2012 about brave new frontiers for journalism, the hunt for a business model to pay for it all, and what he hoped (and feared) the Leveson Inquiry would decide about press regulation.

Fed up of superhero films? Hiding your copy of Watchmen behind the Economist on the train? Comics are a serious literary form as well as being fun, says the author of a new book on Batman.

The Private Eye satirist and author recommends five entertaining published diaries, from Andy Warhol to Harpo Marx – and tells us why parody is a pickpocket

Britain is a bewilderingly motley nation of phlegmatic grumblers, says the author and editor Matthew Engel – a seaside resort-going, class-conscious people haunted by loss of empire, and we can’t even agree on what the country is called

Travel is a leap in the dark, says Paul Theroux and one that will leave you a different person at the other end. He recommends five travel books that inspired him, from Mark Twain at sea to VS Naipaul in India

The challenges – and opportunities – of our times have never been greater. Everything from our models of political participation to the very architecture of our brains is at stake, says the novelist and technology blogger Nick Harkaway.

Modern science emerged only when it became acceptable to ask any question about anything – and that required erosion of traditional hierarchies, says the science writer

Writers in China are afraid to criticise the state and society, says London-based author Ma Jian. From the 3rd century BC to 2008, these five exceptional works show how it’s done.