The Independent
Paperback review: Breakdown, By Sara Paretsky
A group of teenage girls holds an initiation ceremony to the Vampire Society in a Chicago cemetery at midnight.
Play of the week: As You Like It, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Despite a sombre beginning, Maria Aberg's production establishes itself as the most joyous - and truly ensemble - take on this lovely but tricky comedy in more than 20 years.
Comedian of the week: Daniel Kitson, various venues
A year after Daniel Kitson relieved himself of his trademark locks and beard for the exquisite Where Once Was Wonder, a show about identity (Kitson was worried that his had been hijacked and appropriated as some sort of left-field brand), the master story
Book of a lifetime: If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things, By Jon McGregor
I lay buried on a dusty velvet sofa, in a small room in a flat in a street in a city. Outside the window there was a tree cut through with telephone wires. I'd watched the tree go from skeleton to bud to leaf to skeleton for nearly five years. There was a
Bring Up the Bodies, By Hilary Mantel
In place of the smithy-to-court social ascent in Wolf Hall, the middle passage of Mantel's Thomas Cromwell trilogy delivers top-level, close-focus state crisis.
Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, By Emma Straub
In this Fitzgerald-inspired debut set in Hollywood's golden age, Straub traces an actress's career from summer stock extra to Oscar-winning star.
Tigers in Red Weather, By Liza Klaussmann
This sizzling debut is a nice reminder that balmier times are on their way. Nick and her cousin Helena have always spent their summers at the family mansion in Martha's Vineyard.
RUBBERBANDance Group, Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London
In Gravity of Center , RUBBERBANDance Group literally pushes its dancers to the brink.
Classical review: Keller Quartet (*****)/ Charles Owen (****)
The story of Bach’s pen slipping from his lifeless fingers while composing The Art of Fugue - which ends in mid-bar, notes hanging in the air - may be apocryphal, but this work will always be one of music’s sacred mysteries.