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Alex Pavesi, Sarah Moss, Elizabeth Okoh and Emily St. John Mandel: This week's best new fiction
A mathematician devises a series of fiendishly inventive murder mysteries. Thirty years later a young editor comes to visit the author with a view to republishing them.
From Machine Gun Kelly in Project Power to The Trip To Italy: The best on demand TV this week
Project Power was the subject of a bidding war between various companies before Netflix won the rights to turn it into a movie.
DEBORAH ROSS: A sexy, mesmerising binge watch. But not with the kids
It's modern. It's fresh. It's sexy. It's visually stunning. It's superbly acted. It's daring. It's different. Enough to be getting on with?
Can we have a photo? the children asked Amanda. 'Sure, I'll get Piers to take it...'
'Could we have a photo?' the Dutch fans pleaded. 'Of course! I'll get Piers to take it. Do you know him?' The children peered at me with total uninterest. 'No. Who is he?'
Bill Bryson, Meg Rosoff, Sally Rooney and Kate Riordan: This week's best audiobooks
The human body is two-thirds oxygen. We grow about eight metres of hair in a lifetime. In the past 10,000 years, the brain has shrunk by an amount equivalent to the volume of a tennis ball.
West End Musical Drive-In review: It's not theatre as we know it, but at least there's human contact
A concrete car park near Chingford, a North London outpost best known for being Norman Tebbit's old constituency, is nobody's idea of theatrical glamour.
Paris Match review: A clear-eyed and charming book
When he was nine, John von Sothen visited France for the first time. Like a million other American kids on family holidays, he was bored by the cafés, the bateaux-mouches, the sights.
Alanis Morissette new album review: Such Pretty Forks In The Road is full of likeable melodies
A quiz question for you. Alanis Morissette's last album, released in 2012, was called... what? The answer turns out to be Havoc And Bright Lights. It reached No. 12 in the UK chart.
From That Peter Crouch Podcast to Paradise and The Rob Auton Daily Podcast: This week's top podcasts
Last month Prince William appeared on this popular podcast to talk about mental health, and ended up being drawn down all sorts of jollier rabbit holes.
DEBORAH ROSS: Goodness gracious me: why the Peter Sellers accents?
A Suitable Boy is the BBC's much-anticipated adaptation of Vikram Seth's 1,349-page, 592,552-word novel, which is one of those big books I always said I'd read but never have
Ali Smith, Frances Cha, Vaseem Khan and Elin Hilderbrand: This week's brand new fiction
The final instalment of Smith's seasonal quartet dovetails the bang up-to-date story of a brother and sister during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Memorial Drive review: Natasha Trethewey has crafted an indelible memorial to her mother
In 1985, when Natasha Trethewey was 19, her former stepfather shot and killed her mother at point-blank range at their home in Atlanta.
Unhinged review: The wrong film at the wrong time
For months, anyone who cares about the future of British cinema has been looking forward to Unhinged.
From a box set of classic stage productions to The Rain & Bad Banks: The best on demand TV this week
For those missing live theatre, BritBox has come to the rescue. They have made 25 RSC productions of Shakespeare plays available in its Centre Stage collection.
From Susie Dent's Something Rhymes With Purple to The Travel Diaries: This week's top podcasts
This show, about the vagaries of English, was crowned best entertainment podcast at this year's British Podcast Awards.
'I've considered all the risks,' Joan chuckled. 'If you die, Piers, you die'
Dame Joan Collins has been enraged about the way older people have been treated during the coronavirus crisis
From Fort Salem to Elizabeth Is Missing and The Hater: The best on demand TV this week
Three American teenagers are off to do their basic training on a prestigious military course. But it's not West Point. It's Fort Salem - and this is special forces with spells.
Emma Gannon, S. J. Parris, Lynne Truss and Caoilinn Hughes: This week's best new fiction
Everywhere she looks, Olive sees babies. Except in her own future - an admission that yields incredulity, mistrust and a devastating break-up.
Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier review: A thought-provoking book about gender dysphoria
Changing sex used to be vanishingly rare, and then suddenly it wasn't. Over the past decade, there has been a 1,000 per cent increase in gender dysphoria among American adolescents.
How Ronnie Kray's peer was kept out of jail - by his bow ties and Eton drawl
Like Jeremy Thorpe, Alan Clark, Jonathan Aitken, Lord Lucan, Captain Hook and our current Prime Minister, Bob Boothby was an Old Etonian renowned for his wit and charm
From The Joe Wicks Podcast to Homo Sapiens and The Pargetter Triptych: This week's top podcasts
The lockdown has made a king of Joe Wicks, the fitness instructor who has been teaching us how to stay healthy. Now, inevitably, he has a perky BBC podcast.
DEBORAH ROSS: Miriam Down Under - rude, naughty but a sheer delight
You'd think, by now, we'd be done with Miriam being wheeled out here, there and everywhere and I'm aware that some people can't stand her, but I fall in love with her every time
Summerland review: Gemma Arterton stars in a wartime film hampered by its complex storyline
Cinemas - at least in England - have been open for three weeks now, sustained by a mix of classics, recent films that had their run curtailed by coronavirus and some low-profile new releases.
Taylor Swift review: Surprise album Folklore is her most grown-up, and her best
Taylor Swift's Instagram is quite something. While following nobody herself, she has 137 million followers. Even if half of those accounts were fake, she would still have a vast audience.
Emma Donoghue, Amity Gaige, John Boyne and William Shaw: This week's best new fiction
Eerily topical, Donoghue's new novel reads like an episode of Call The Midwife set during a pandemic. The main character is a nurse on a Dublin maternity ward in 1918.
From My Mate Bought A Toaster to Crowdscience, Backlisted and Job Centre: This week's top podcasts
What does your Amazon purchase history say about you? An uncomfortable amount, it turns out. In this weekly podcast Tom Price asks guests to submit their Amazon accounts to his ruthless judgement...
'Will and Jada's turbulent marriage? They'd told me all about it already'
Movie superstar Will Smith and his actress wife Jada Pinkett Smith have sparked worldwide shock and bemusement by publicly discussing their turbulent 22-year marriage
JARV IS... album review: Each track in Beyond The Pale is an event
An act called JARV IS… who could that possibly be? At a time when millions of people are facing up to wearing masks, Jarvis Cocker has opted for something fairly transparent.
DEBORAH ROSS: Chaos. Drugs. But one of the best series I've ever watched
The 12-parter, which concluded this week, was created and written by Michaela Coel, who also stars mesmerisingly as Arabella
From How To Build A Girl to The Young Offenders and Burton & Taylor: This week's best on demand TV
In 2014, Caitlin Moran's novel How To Build A Girl became a bestseller.
Katie Price's mermaid granny... and why you should never swim with a snapping turtle
The publisher's blurb claims that Splash! is 'as refreshing as jumping into a pool on a hot summer's day'. This is overdoing it. It is good in parts, but somehow always feels tied to the ground
Prisoners Of History review: Keith Lowe doesn't come up with any easy answers
All around the world, statues are falling. In Britain it's slave traders and colonialists who have found themselves at the bottom of rivers, or boarded up for their own safety.
Raise your glass to '31 Days of German Riesling' - this is the perfect time to taste for yourself
Riesling, from its spiritual home in Germany, is one of the greatest treasures of the wine world - and this month I'm delighted to raise my glass to '31 Days of German Riesling'.
If I'd known the killjoys would rage at one sip of beer, I'd have downed my pint in one
Eight people complained to Ofcom, the TV regulator, because I took one sip of a pint of beer at 6.42am, to mark pubs being able to reopen at the weekend after 104 days of lockdown
From Julie's Library to Doing It Right & Scarlett Moffatt Wants To Believe: This week's top podcasts
I could listen to Julie Andrews read the side of a packet of Pringles. In her new podcast, she settles down with her daughter Emma to read their favourite children's books.
The Pretenders album review: Chrissie Hynde still sings like a dream
There's a puzzle about The Pretenders. Why are they not as big as they used to be? In a lockdown sort-out way, I came across a ticket for their show at Wembley Arena in 1987.
DEBORAH ROSS: The Secrets She Keeps is good but forgettable
The Secrets She Keeps is one of those television thrillers that has enough twists to hook you in but will ultimately prove forgettable
From Michaela Coel's I May Destroy You to Cursed and Das Boot: The best on demand TV this week
Although not exactly unknown before I May Destroy You - her E4 comedy series Chewing Gum was much admired - Michaela Coel is now being hailed as a TV superstar.
Fat Cow, Fat Chance review: This book should be in every school as a warning to girls and boys
When I review a book, I mark interesting pages with Post-its.
A richly evocative celebration of summers when children were free to roam, make mischief
For those of us who were born before the arrival of smartphones and video games and all-day telly, this splendid book rings bells galore.
Emma Straub and P. Z. Reizin: This week's best new fiction
Our devices are spying on us - but whose side are they on? Daisy's smart fridge is tired of harvesting marketing data on her toxic food and dating choices.
Buying wine online has become the norm for many... and with no heavy lifting, why wouldn't you?
The surge of elation when wine is piped to my door feels like a geyser of liquid treasure erupting from the postman's sack.
This courtroom memoir is so lacking in drama it's criminal
On the cover, the publishers have given this book a racy subtitle: 'Harold Shipman To Operation Midland: 17 Cases That Shocked The World.'
Steve Bing and I lived at the same hotel for years - and NEVER spoke
American movie tycoon Steve Bing has tragically jumped to his death from the 27th floor of a building in Los Angeles - prompting moving tributes
From Kristen Bell in Frozen II to the Glow Up final and Dead Still: The best on demand TV this week
Just when children - and, let's face it, many adults - finally got the catchy tune Let It Go out of their heads, along came this sequel.
DEBORAH ROSS: If anyone can find beauty by the M25, it's hawk-eyed Helen
I needed non-harrowing, but it also had to be non-familiar. So I settled for the M25 and dogs with cameras on their backs
From Alan Davies' The Tuesday Club to The Penguin Podcast and About Race: this week's top podcasts
I am full of admiration for the sports podcasts that have ground on through the pandemic. But with football starting up again, now's the time to return to this wonderful podcast, presented by Ala...
From Tom Hanks in Greyhound to Cate Blanchett's Stateless: The best on demand TV this week
Things went rapidly south the last time Tom Hanks was in charge of an ocean-going vessel - in Captain Phillips. Now he's heading into choppy waters again as a newly promoted US Navy officer.
Jasper Fforde, David Mitchell, Clare Chambers and Sabine Durrant: This week's best new fiction
When Dean, late of the group Battleship Potemkin, teams up with Elf, Jasper and Griff to form a new band, another triumph of hope over experience looks inevitable.
The History Of Magic review: Vast and transformational
There is nothing in these pages about conjuring tricks, sawing women in half, muggles, rabbits or wands.
Haim album review: They bring the smooth harmonies of all the great sibling acts
There are bands that become well established while remaining a mystery to many music-lovers.
PIERS MORGAN: Britt Ekland told me I need to lose my 'corona kilos'
Ex-Bond girl Britt Ekland appeared on GMB and said the 007 'fantasy has been ruined' by rumours the spy discovers he has a son in the upcoming movie, No Time To Die
Amanda Craig, Charlotte Wood, David Trueba and Nicola Maye Goldberg: This week's best new fiction
This portrait of Brexit Britain reveals a country hopelessly divided by class and geography. London ad strategist Hannah's marriage has collapsed and she's cleaning houses to feed her daughter.
Miss Aluminium review: Scalding honesty and sly, watchful humour
It is so much to the credit of this memoir that its dissonant materials of family tragedy and Hollywood gossip make an apparently seamless whole.
The Glastonbury Experience review: The BBC has gone retro-Glasto to celebrate 50 years
This weekend, the world's greatest festival should have turned into a giant 50th birthday party, with Paul McCartney and Diana Ross as guests of honour.
From Sandi Toksvig's We Will Get Past This to 1619 and How To Survive: This week's top podcasts
We all need Sandi Toksvig in our lives right now. Thankfully she has noticed and is churning out a soothing daily podcast from her home's 'room of books'.
CRAIG BROWN: John Bolton's revelations about Trump ring true
One or two readers have been less than enthusiastic about this big, fat Washington memoir
DEBORAH ROSS: Anna's NZ adventure? Just give up and go home, love
The Luminaries is an adaptation of Eleanor Catton's Man Booker prize-winning novel, set in New Zealand during the gold rush
Sip great summery scented wines for under ten quid
June 24 1981 is probably a date that doesn't immediately make you think of wine. It was the day that the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only was released.
Bob Dylan album review: Rough And Rowdy Ways may be energetically crafted but it lacks originality
At the grand old age of 79, Bob Dylan is still hungry. The minute lockdown happened, he released the longest song of his never-ending career.
DEBORAH ROSS: Why Tracy from Salisbury should be running the world
The Salisbury Poisonings was way over the top, honestly. It was all extremely far-fetched and ridiculous and couldn't happen. Except, of course, that it did
Karin Slaughter, Emily Temple, Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Elizabeth Wetmore: This week's new fiction
The books in Slaughter's series featuring detective Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton have deservedly become bestsellers.
The despots' chefs who diced with death
How To Feed A Dictator offers a beguiling mix of the dark and the comic, combining fancy cuisine with torture and genocide
From Will Ferrell's Eurovision comedy to Succession & Bright Lights: The best on demand TV this week
This year's competition fell by the wayside due to Covid-19, leaving a huge Eurovision-sized gap in our hearts. Thankfully Will Ferrell is here to fill it.
The Consequences Of Love review: A vivid and oddly entertaining memoir
Gavanndra Hodge appears to be the standard, posh, glossy-mag girl: a blonde Cambridge graduate who grew up in West London and became deputy editor of Tatler.
Flintoff cheered as I fell backwards with an almighty crash
As Freddie said when we wandered back to the clubhouse at the end: 'Just nice to be out having a laugh again with some mates, isn't it?' God, yes.
Share the love by sending a terrific gift to make your Dad's day
Fathers' Day will be different this year. While we've been parted from our loved ones, it presents a poignant opportunity to share the love by sending a terrific gift to make your Dad's day.
From Bette Midler in The Politician to The Great with Elle Fanning: The best on demand TV this week
From the creators of Glee and American Horror Story. Each season of this campy satire revolves around a political campaign by Payton Hobart (Ben Platt).
'It's a gut-wrenchingly sad time for all of us who care about Kate'
Ten weeks ago, on March 31, Good Morning Britain's editor rang me with the awful news that our colleague Kate Garraway's husband Derek Draper had been rushed to hospital with Covid-19
Laura Marling at Union Chapel review: 'It's a thrill to hear live music again'
You won't believe what happened the other night. I went to a concert. Laura Marling's show at the Union Chapel was the first lockdown gig by an established artist at a leading London venue.
DEBORAH ROSS: Comedy heaven! And even a Zoom joke that's funny...
A pure joy - that is, a pure, pure joy and, quite possibly, heaven - is the new comedy series, Staged. So so soooooo funny. It stars actors David Tennant and Michael Sheen as themselves
Joyce Carol Oates, Joanna Briscoe, Louise Candlish and L. Annette Binder: This week's new fiction
Jamie is an amiable slacker in his late 40s, working in a coffee shop and enjoying his commute on the Thames river bus.
Billion Dollar Burger review: It's something worthy of attention
What is meat? An odd question, you might think, for we are all familiar with steaks, chops and sausages and the animals from which they come.
CRAIG BROWN: Apocalyptic loons are a staple of the Left and Right
Nowadays, climate change has taken over from nuclear war as the main focus of angst, but if you don't believe in climate change, there are plenty of other fears to fall back on
Sipping wine on holiday may not be possible this year but we can have a liquid holiday instead
Sharing wine with friends is among my favourite things - only pipped to the post by sharing wine with friends on holidays.
From Colin Farrell in Artemis Fowl to Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods: The best on demand TV this week
Eoin Colfer's best-selling fantasy novels feature 12-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl and the Lower Elements, which is the world of the fairies.
Barbra Streisand gave me her withering verdict: 'You should never sing...'
A few years ago, I was seated next to Barbra Streisand at a private dinner party in Malibu thrown by music producer David Foster
Wanderland by Jini Reddy review: A funny and touching account of a year spent searching for magic
A few years ago, broke, bereaved and emotionally adrift, Jini Reddy decided to spend a year searching for magic. She had a hunch that the British landscape might help heal her heart and soul.
Hazel Barkworth, Matthew Kneale, Rebecca Kauffman and Stuart Evers: This week's best new fiction
It is 1289 and a motley group of English pilgrims set out on the long journey to Rome. All medieval life is here: a guilty adulteress, a landlord who has punched an abbot and a converted Jew.
A club for great wits, or just sozzled old twits?
The Colony Room Club's principal attraction was that it was open in the afternoons, when ordinary pubs were obliged to close
DEBORAH ROSS: A seductive symphony of sex, secrets and Parisian style
Philharmonia is a French thriller, and I thought I'd give it one episode to see how we go, but one became two, and two became three, and you can guess the rest, I think
From Cate Blanchett on WTF With Marc Maron to The Week Junior Show: This week's top podcasts
I've recently tuned back in to WTF, the hit interview podcast hosted by Marc Maron. His girlfriend, Lynn Shelton, died suddenly last month.
John Grisham, Gerald Jacobs, Leaf Arbuthnot and Catherine Lacey: This week's best new fiction
The Camino Island series, featuring bookseller Bruce Cable, is a chance for Grisham to have fun. This time the Florida barrier island is struck by a hurricane and amid the chaos a writer is kille...
Get the taste of holidays in the Mediterranean at home with this selection of wild rosés
Rosé sales are rocketing. I love a glass of the chilled pale stuff when the sun has got his hat on, but I adore the wild stuff even more.
From Big Bird on Dear... to Alex Rider & an Anthony Bourdain boxset: The best on demand TV this week
'Your legacy is every life you've touched,' says Oprah Winfrey during this new biographical series. Inspired by the Dear Apple adverts, it profiles a number of public figures.
Lady Gaga album review: She is lording it again with Chromatica
Long ago, in the days of Duran Duran and Culture Club, Smash Hits magazine used to say that the biggest stars were in their imperial phase. Back then, the term nearly always applied to men.
Nicola Benedetti album review: Overall a compelling listen, despite its wayward moments
Nicola Benedetti has been such a feature on the classical music scene for almost two decades, it's hard to remember she's still only 32. She's crammed a lot in.
Bezonomics review: It shines in its detailed exposition of how the Amazon phenomenon was built
When Brian Dumaine set out to write a book about how Amazon and its creator Jeff Bezos were conquering the world, even he could not have imagined its prescience.
CRAIG BROWN: Rodham is a sort of American liberal wet dream
Curtis Sittenfeld grows too engrossed in her 'What if?' parlour game. The real story is both more complicated, and, I'm afraid, more interesting
From Spitfire: The People's Plane to House Of Rugby and Floodlines: This week's top podcasts
It's hard to think of a plane that has captured a nation's imagination more than the Spitfire. The story of how these planes helped win WWII is stirringly told in this new BBC series.
Rule No 1 of being a good parent? Stay off this show
Channel 4's latest reality competition is Britain's Best Parent? , although you do have to wonder whether the first rule of being Britain's best parent is: don't appear on a show like Britain's B...
Simon Stephenson, Michael Connelly, Paul M. M. Cooper and Nick Bradley: This week's best new fiction
Reporter Jack McEvoy first appeared in Connelly's 1996 breakthrough thriller, The Poet. The newspaper industry is no longer what it was, and nor is Jack.
With the weather starting to sizzle, in absence of a burger van, why not ramp up the vin instead
The dish of choice in lockdown lately seems to be burgers.
What on earth have Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus got to do with the Curse of the Kennedys?
Just how many Kennedys are there? And are there really enough curses to go round?
Native review: Feels unforced and utterly authentic
A few years ago Patrick Laurie bought a tumbledown smallholding in his native Galloway, and set about turning it into a paying prospect. So far, so clichéd.
From The Poet Laureate Has Gone To His Shed to Lockdown Parenting Hell: This week's top podcasts
Simon Armitage, the nation's bard, is spending lockdown holed up in a shed in the Pennines and working on a translation of a medieval poem.
DEBORAH ROSS: Yes, Tony's tale is so sad... but what a love story too!
Once a big comedy star, Tony Slattery now lives in a rented two-up, two-down in Edgware and, once so handsome, I think it's fair to say he is unrecognisable today
From Space Force to Gangs Of London and Sir Cliff Richard: 60 Years: The best on demand TV this week
Last week, when President Trump proudly unveiled the flag for Space Force, there must have been high-fives all round at Netflix HQ because here comes its excellent comedy drama of the same name.
Jenny Colgan, Lily King, Susie Steiner and Shubhangi Swarup: This week's best new fiction
In Colgan's third novel set in the village of Kirrinfief, another burnt-out Englishwoman finds balm on the banks of Loch Ness.
Celia gouged, slashed and razored my scalp to cries of 'Oops!', 'Oh dear' and 'Sorry!'
'Shall I cut your hair?' asked Celia, eyeing my increasingly overgrown lockdown locks. 'Have you ever done it before?' I replied nervously. 'No, but I've watched a YouTube tutorial,' she replied
How the Woody Allen scandal is ending in a truly startling twist...
'Of course I am aware I am the subject of gossip and scandal, but I cannot let it bother me. I live my life. I work. I play jazz. I watch sports. I see my friends. I don't look up and I don't rea...
Woody's fightback... from self-lacerating gags to a howl of pain
What a bizarre book this is: three parts funny to one part stark, staring horror
When the weather starts to sizzle chilling reds can be such a cooling, enriching experience
Chilling reds is common on the continent and when the weather starts to sizzle it can be such a cooling enriching experience that we should be celebrating far more often.
Springwatch returns as wildlife becomes more important to us than ever
Springwatch is back, just as we're all falling in love with nature again during lockdown - but the massively popular British wildlife show is also being forced to change
Want to get SUPER-RICH? Well, here's how NOT to do it - by a superbly witty misery-guts
William Leith's The Trick represents a bizarre combination of two genres - a get-rich-quick book written by a misery-guts pauper
Hollywood's Eve review: The fascinating story of a woman who set out to wreak havoc
The name Eve Babitz may not mean much, if anything, these days, but half a century ago she swept her way through Los Angeles like a bush fire.
I'm not easily fazed but felt a sudden wave of panic ...
'Breathlessness, cough and lethargy are all possible symptoms of Covid-19,' the consultant said. 'You should get a test as soon as possible.'
From Ellie Goulding on Fear Itself to James Acaster's Perfect Sounds: This week's top podcasts
Actress Cressida Bonas is still best known for having gone out with Prince Harry. Yet her new podcast reveals her to be a thoughtful interviewer too.
From Little Fires Everywhere to The Hunt & A Streetcar Named Desire: The best on demand TV this week
A classy adaptation of the best-selling novel about family secrets, motherhood and race, co-produced by and starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington.
DEBORAH ROSS: RIP Dad... now I can see why the hospital sent you home
My father was 96 and would not have wished for treatment if it meant someone else would go without, but could we have kept him going for a few more years?
Wine and pizza pairings so good to make your smile wide enough for an extra slice
One of the most searched-for recipes on the BBC Food website during lockdown is pizza.
What to sip during your lockdown quiz
My wife is wearing an orange wig, beaming into her laptop and sipping a glass of cool beer.
From Fearne Cotton's Happy Place to No Really, I'm Fine & History Of Ideas: This week's top podcasts
Every week Fearne Cotton asks famous guests to tell her what happiness means to them. Cotton is no bulldog interviewer but she has twinkle in spades and gets the best from her interviewees.
The dad who was such a design freak he scrubbed his silver birch trees with bleach
The author of The See-Through House, Shelley Klein, was born and brought up in a modernist home. Comfort was sacrificed to the peculiarly unforgiving aesthetics of modernism
The Most Dangerous Man In America review: A suitably head-spinning account of Timothy Leary
Dr Timothy Leary was the godfather of the psychedelic 1960s. Turn on, tune in, drop out: that was his catchphrase. If everyone took LSD, he said, there would be no more wars.
DEBORAH ROSS: Fabulous! Not the drama, Sheridan's luscious kitchen
Jeff Pope's Isolation Stories is a great technological achievement but not so much a dramatic one. But the imposed story arcs didn't ring true
From new drama White Lines to Scrubs and Thunderbirds box sets: The best on demand TV this week
When the Spanish crime drama Money Heist became a global hit, Netflix shrewdly signed up creator Álex Pina to make another show. This ten-episode series is the result.
Louis Lortie review: New album, In Paradisum, makes apparent the importance of Fauré's piano works
Gabriel Fauré wrote some toothsome melodies in stuff such as his Requiem, or the Cantique De Jean Racine, and the delicious Pavane. Fauré's real claim to fame, though, is his piano music.
From Sophie Ellis-Bextor to Bruce Springsteen and Annie Lennox: The best virtual gigs of the week
A gig on your laptop sounds like a contradiction in terms. It won't be the same consuming thrill, but it can still be a treat of a different kind - cooler, calmer, more intimate. And easier to ge...
Rick Gekoski, Richard Ford, Elisabeth Thomas and Jessica Anthony: This week's best new fiction
Dr James Darke first appeared in Gekoski's 2017 debut novel, and this welcome follow-up finds our irascible, bibliophilic protagonist the subject of an ongoing police investigation.
Joan As Police Woman album review: A light in the middle of the tunnel
Out of this strange suspended spring, patterns are emerging. If an album isn't postponed, it's quite likely to be special. Music, like the sky on a sunny day, seems brighter, sharper, deeper.
DEBORAH ROSS: The book? Irritating. The TV drama? Just gorgeous
Normal People is terrific, absolutely gorgeous, up there with the best TV dramas of recent years, like Patrick Melrose and My Brilliant Friend, but possibly not Belgravia
Shostakovich: Symphony No 11 review: It's brilliantly orchestrated here by the BBC Philharmonic
Shostakovich's 11th Symphony here receives a performance of exceptional eloquence from the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic under their chief guest conductor, the Finn John Storgårds.
Valkyrie review: Johanna Fridriksdottir makes the Vikings feel far closer to us than ever before
When we think of Vikings, we immediately conjure up a vision of hairy men in pointy helmets with nothing but pillage and slaughter on their mind. But what about the women?
Our critic has always loved The Kinks. But he despairs at this joyless history
Doyle follows an ever-increasing line of academics who attempt to sanctify pop music with stuffiness. In so doing, they extinguish its fire in a great whoosh of homogenous jargon
Lionel Shriver, Caroline Hulse, Adam Macqueen and Ellen Alpsten: This week's best new fiction
Identity politics, extreme exercise and tattoos are among the fads skewered in Shriver's tale of ageing Boomers. It centres on Serenata and Remington, whose marriage is rock-solid.
From Grounded With Louis Theroux to Her Spirit, This Is Money and Babbage: This week's top podcasts
In his new podcast series, the cult documentary-maker Louis Theroux calls up people that he finds interesting and wouldn't necessarily get to interview in normal life.
From Jack Thorne's The Eddy to Warrior and Tom Hardy in Taboo: The best on demand TV this week
The Eddy is a jazz club in an unfashionable part of Paris. It's owned by Elliot, an American musician who's fighting to keep the place running while trying to get his relationship with his daught...
'You gotta win,' Donald Trump told me. But right now, he's losing'
President Trump unfollowed me on Twitter overnight, which, given that he follows only 47 accounts, was not an insignificant moment
The best bottles on UK shelves for under ten quid
With many of us experiencing uncertainty and pressure on household bills, this week's column is dedicated to finding you the best bottles on UK shelves for under ten quid.
From Rafe Spall in Trying to new Medici: The Magnificent & The Bill: The best on demand TV this week
The streaming service's first British series looks like being one of its best shows to date. The series' pedigree is certainly impressive.
'We've fought so many battles,' Captain Tom told me. 'We will win again'
Captain Tom Moore passed his 100 laps but vowed to keep going: 'I'll continue walking as long as people are generous enough to donate to the NHS.'
Clothes... And Other Things That Matter review: Alexandra Shulman's new book is both wry and candid
Alexandra Shulman is British Vogue's longest-serving editor. Between 1992 and 2017 she oversaw the magazine's rise to a record circulation.
Fiona Apple album review: Fetch The Bolt Cutters is one hell of an achievement
In a fascinating, fitful career, Fiona Apple has often felt like a one-woman band - singing, playing the piano, perhaps throwing in some rudimentary percussion.
From Katherine Ryan: Telling Everybody Everything to The High Low, This week's top podcasts
Comedian Katherine Ryan admits to being a late adopter who didn't think podcasts would take off. Now she's launched her own, and it's kookily addictive.
DEBORAH ROSS: If you like violence, you'll love this. Me? No thanks...
I've given this (a generous) three stars because I know those who like this sort of thing will like this, so it works in that sense, but there's nothing new here
Robert Webb, Adele Parks, Ilaria Bernardini and Stephanie Scott: This week's best new fiction
Comedian and memoirist Webb tries his hand at fiction in this romance about a widowed tech expert who travels back to 1992 to warn her future husband about his fatal brain tumour.
Daniel Hope review: New album Belle Epoque 'will bring rich rewards to the curious'
We don't see much of Berlin-based Daniel Hope these days, but an album like this shows us what we are missing.
Austrian wines are of wonderful value for the quality that's on offer
I've been banging the drum for Austrian wine so loudly for so long that I sometimes worry my enthusiastic zeal for their liquid loveliness turns me into Animal, the drummer from the Muppets.
The Ratline review: Switching between the distant and recent past only makes it more compelling
Like the Führer he served with unblinking loyalty, Otto Wächter was an Austrian.
Pin-sharp satire from a modern-day Dorothy Parker. What a pity it curdles into agitprop...
With this, her first novel, Naoise Dolan proves she is a wonderfully sharp, comic writer, adept at making wisecracks in the caustic, knock-'em-off, knock-'em-down tradition of Dorothy Parker
Laura Marling album review: This strange period has found its first classic album
Quite a few albums that should have come out now have been postponed till the autumn. You can understand why, but it's no use to the fans who have time to kill and a thirst for new music.
Stephen King, Beth O'Leary, Michael Arditti and Martin Edwards: This week's best new fiction
The title piece in King's latest collection of supernatural tales serves up a vivid metaphor for the media's unhealthy relationship with violent crime.
DEBORAH ROSS: People coughed and no one scarpered. Imagine that!
Quiz, which told the story of Charles Ingram, who was convicted of cheating on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in 2001, was a joy and a hoot. And also deeply fascinating
From Tanya Byron's How Did We Get Here? to The Rachman Review: This week's top podcasts
For better or worse, the pandemic has sent many of us back to our family units, and this podcast could be a lifeline to those looking to detoxify dynamics at home.
From Ricky Gervais' After Life to Defending Jacob and Liar: The best on demand TV this week
On hearing that his dark and, at times, almost unbearably moving comedy had been recommissioned, Ricky Gervais said, 'I have never had a reaction like this before. It's been insane.'
A dozen pints with my mates and a curry... that will be my taste of freedom
Honor Blackman, my favourite Bond girl as sassy Pussy Galore, died, aged 94, at her home in Lewes, East Sussex, three miles from my village of Newick
Benjamin Grosvenor album review: His playing is entirely devoid of shallow point-scoring
Sometimes hype is just that; hype. But occasionally it's true.
Try these apps and games to get you through self-isolation
Like many people, I'm now facing the possibility of several weeks confined with my four-year-old, a prospect only marginally less alarming than being cooped up with Frankenstein's monster
Pure, not prissy: Indian at its best
This is modern Indian cooking at its best, pure but never prissy, with the most eloquent understanding of spice