Kate Cooper’s pacy tale of heroines, virgins and martyrs recounts the largely unknown role of women in shaping the early Church

George Herbert is the poet's poet. John Drury's biography is at times infuriatingly simplistic, but succeeds in its scholarship

Kristina Carlson's Mr Darwin's Gardener proves that the God debate still generates copy and sells books

Mealy-mouthed and equivocal or just shy? Two new books help us to understand the motives and beliefs of the enigmatic Pope Francis

There is a truth at the heart of his controversial comments about my antecedent which Niall Ferguson does not need to apologise for

Ian McEwan's new novel Sweet Tooth is a brilliant exercise in deception

Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies is a dazzling exercise in literary ventriloquism, but it panders too much to modern sensibilities, painting Thomas Cromwell as a secular saint

Education does not disqualify women from having children, as Dr Lucy Worsley falsely claims; a grounding in the humanities provides the best basis for motherhood

Book review of The Elizabethans by A.N. Wilson