Let's start with the title. It's a shocker. Not only does it suggest, misleadingly, a humorous tome on medieval saints and their appendages, but its register seems quite inappropriate to what is in...
Graham Farmelo applauds an ambitious scientific work, but warns that it's not for the fainthearted
Many people would agree that a society in which a chief executive officer earns not five or 10 but 100 times as much as the average full-time worker is not a fair society. A series of recent studies...
When the anthology Popular Eugenics: National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in the 1930s was published in 2006, one contribution struck a discordant note. While the other essays typically...
The actions of a Jewish gay icon in wartime France were iffy, not treacherous, argues Matthew Feldman
In a book that considers the appearance of the heavens from the point of view of naked-eye observations on the Earth's surface, Thomas Hockey writes about the practical astronomy that anyone can do...
A commonplace distinction in biblical studies is that between "what it meant" and "what it means". The authors of The Bible Now, who are experts on the Old Testament (or, for Jews, the Hebrew Bible...
Still looking for Christmas gifts? You might be inspired by a book on Renaissance accessories. Matthew Reisz writes
Government Art Collection, Selected by Simon Schama: Travelling LightWhitechapel Gallery, London, until 26 FebruaryAt 25, Lord Byron was the ultimate matinee idol, posing in Albanian dress with...
BBC Radio 4The Mumbai ChuzzlewitsConvinced that his relatives are after his money, wealthy old landlord Martin Chuzzlewit has adopted an orphan called Mary as his carer. Although she will be housed...
A Personal Christmas Message from the Office of the President and Vice-ChancellorThis is inevitably that very special time of year when the thoughts of all those of us who continue to uphold and...
Universities cherish autonomy. When government strings truss them like Christmas turkeys, some might break for freedom
Nobel row raises questions of who gets credit for research in an age of in 'hype'. Paul Jump writes
• As the National Union of Students revealed that more students are turning to sex work to cope with the cost of university, the Daily Mail mounted a graphic exposé. On 15 December, it told the tale...
After four years in Cairo helping to establish the British University in Egypt (BUE), I am more convinced than ever that one of my long-held beliefs holds true: the UK does not value its universities...