When the ravages of Alzheimer’s leave an elderly woman marooned in painful memories of October 1950, her grandchild comes up with a creative strategy.

JONATHAN TAYLOR reviews a collection of short stories wherein news - and the absence of news - changes lives

JONATHAN TAYLOR ponders the difference between autobiography and memoir - between life and story - in Margaret Atwood’s account of herself

JONATHAN TAYLOR is intrigued how good storytelling can make a hobby as obsessional as metal detecting seem fascinating

JONATHAN TAYLOR is fascinated by the philosophical problems that permeate the art of life-writing

JONATHAN TAYLOR appreciates how, for a black British musician, to walk onstage can be a rebellious act

JONATHAN TAYLOR attempts to disentangle the mind, self and political opinions of a successful bourgeois novelist

JONATHAN TAYLOR attempts to disentangle the mind, self and political opinions of a successful bourgeois novelist

JONATHAN TAYLOR is intrigued by an account of the struggle of Soviet-era musicians to adapt to the strictures of social realism