For Irish people this means that a million of us are the Sunday Independent, well once a week at least. Not surprisingly, the Sunday Independent far outsells all its indigenous and foreign competitors each week. Over the past decade there actually has been little to no change. A decade ago the Sunday Independent's circulation was 276,212 and now it sells 291,036. Over the period it has enjoyed highs of 342,000, but overall, compared to a decade ago, sales have only grown by 14,824. So everything has changed, but somehow remained the same.

Marlon Brando co wrote Fan-Tan in 1970. Fan-Tan, like Brando "is coarse, perverse, idiosyncratic, unapologetically behind the times". Joe Queenan reviews it and recommends it as
a good read

Shortlisted in this year's Booker
prize and now being compared to EM Forster,
Zadie Smith's latest novel, On Beauty, is described as 'not
beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that
took the place of both qualities – something best described as a
profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that
she encountered in her path through life'. By Frank Rich

Two travelled, politically-minded artists were left alone with four blank gallery walls for a month. Billy Leahy looks at the results

Marian Finucane, RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday and Sunday, 11.00 –12.53 am

Sex Slaves, Channel 4, Sunday, 9pm

Newfoundland and Labrador have syddered much hardship, most recently the disappearance of the cod industry, a mainstay of livelihood. And yet John Gimlette's beautifully written book is neither dark nor depressing writes Elizabeth Royte

Billy Leahy looks at Philip Allen's collection of new works at the Kerlin Gallery

Daniel Swift looks at a new book that takes a tour in search of ecumenical understanding between Christianity, Islam and Judaism

Leo Enright was doing his science spot on Morning Ireland during last week's British Association's Festival of Science at Trinity College. On Friday morning his piece was on nanotechnology. "People think,'Oh nano, I understand that, it's amazing what you can squeeze onto a microchip nowadays.'" And then he yelled, building up our confidence, like. "That is NOT what we are talking about here!"