Fact and fiction are separated in Kitty Ferguson's account of Pythagoras. By Clare Lanigan.

World-changers don't come around very often. The world can be chugging along just fine, adjusted to whatever level of development it's at, and then someone appears from nowhere with a whole batch of new ideas and abilities that leave the world different, forever.

Thomas Keneally's latest novel brings the Russian Revolution to life. By Clare Lanigan.

Since the days of Margaret 'There Is No Alternative' Thatcher, many (if not most) people have accepted as natural that economic prosperity can only be achieved through a free-market economy that flourishes as speculators make it big on the international markets. Few governments in the West, despite their political allegiances, have made any serious effort to embrace a different system over the last two decades.

The most complete version yet of Fritz Lang's sci-fi classic is not to be missed. By Clare Lanigan.

For decades the only version available of Fritz Lang's 1927 silent masterpiece 'Metropolis' was a cadavre exquis made up of what footage survived after American distributors cut nearly an hour from the original edit and the lost scenes were left to rot in various warehouses.

An independent Zimbabwean collection reveals another side to this tragic country. By Clare Lanigan.

In recent years it seems the only news stories coming out of Africa are about poverty, corruption, violence and misery, so it's easy to forget that the continent is more than just the disaster zone of the world.

Annabel Lyon has managed to write an historical fiction that rings true in modern times. By Clare Lanigan.

Wild Romance is the study of a generation undergoing seismic change. By Clare Lanigan.

Life imitates art, as the old saying goes, but more often than not it’s the opposite that’s the case. Writers, no matter how literary, can’t help being influenced by the scandalous stories of their day, and this was as true in 19th century Dublin as it is now.