The Specials

Martin Scorsese on Woodstock festival

The Oscar-winning director reveals that it wasn't all peace and love at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969

The woman MP who defies Afghan warlords

Malalai Joya has survived five assassination attempts and been suspended from parliament, but refuses to be silenced

Book extract: Leviathan

Edited extract from Philip Hoare's prizewinning novel

Razorjack: comic book evil has never been so fun

Download the sci-fi thriller from the artist who gave Watchmen its distinctive hue and brought new dynamism to Judge Dredd

Short story: The Importance of Having Warm Feet

As an old woman faces her final hours, her daughter is at last able to forgive her for the acute embarrassment inflicted on the young girl 50 years...

Buried alive

Paralysed, mute but alert. Hasso von Bredow describes his struggle

No one does l’amour like the French

When she was swept into marriage by a Parisian, the writer was amazed by the bed-hopping antics of her new circle

God will save you — believe in him or not

Disaster survivors, whatever their spiritual leanings, tend to credit their good fortune to a higher power

Short story: A Family Evening

A woman chose a husband who was rich and undemanding. But has she paid an awful price for being with a man who cares for nothing but money?

Short story: Dog Days

An untimely death threatens to break one person’s strong bond with their four-footed friend. Hounded by memories, it seems their love cannot...

What it takes to survive

In a disaster, most of us turn to marble – but 10% of people calmly make decisions that save their lives

To war, all paperbacks blazing

Patrick Hennessey, a young Guards officer, formed a reading club to relieve the tedium of Iraq and Afghanistan; but then he found himself in a...

Freud: from the horse’s mouth

In extracts from the book he was compiling when he died, the raconteur and wit recalls tales of the turf

Head over heels: the story behind Jimmy Choo

The gossip behind the partnership between It-girl Tamara Mellon and the shoe designer to the Sex and the City generation

The one wicked thing that Dorothy Macmillan did

In the second extract from the new biography of Macmillan, we reveal the legacy of his wife’s open affair — and how a bungled abortion...

Have the French fallen out of love with food?

Twenty five years ago it was hard to have a bad meal in France, now it’s a challenge to even find a decent baguette

The affair that shaped Harold Macmillan’s career

Harold Macmillan was driven almost to suicide by an affair between his wife and his friend and colleague Robert Boothby