The ever present smartphone means people don’t bother striking up conversation with strangers anymore and self-confessed chatterbox Michelle Murphy isn’t one bit happy...

by Dylan Evans

A gunman has shot and wounded a member of staff at a French newspaper in Paris before fleeing.

Last week was the centenary of the birth of Albert Camus. The great man grew up to become the second-youngest winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1957 (can you guess the youngest?) for works such as The Outsider and The Myth of Sisyphus.

The Sixties and Beyond: Dechristianization in North America and Western Europe, 1945-2000

George Whitman offered refuge to writers and readers at his unique bookstore in Paris, writes Carl Dixon

Malaysian-led activists plan to hold a symbolic trial this month against former US president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair on charges of committing crimes against peace in the Iraq war.

Between the Sheets: The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th-Century Women Writers

Johnny Depp is to star with lover Vanessa Paradis on the big screen.

A FRIEND spent the weekend in Prague and came across open-air stalls in the side streets where they sell old Soviet memorabilia.

THE smoky cafe, essence of the French lifestyle to many, will be but a hazy memory from next week.

The smoky cafe, essence of the French lifestyle to many, will be but a hazy memory from next week.

A ban on smoking in French public spaces came into effect today, a change that may alter the image of a country socially defined in part by its smoky cafes.

A Finn who helped mediate peace in Indonesia is tipped to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, while bookmakers favour a Turkish novelist for the literature award.

Playboy memorabilia, including a topless photograph of Marilyn Monroe, was going on sale today at an auction coinciding with the 50th birthday of the men’s magazine.

A topless photograph of Marilyn Monroe and a limousine once used by Playboy boss Hugh Hefner will go on sale next week at an auction to coincide with the 50th birthday of the men’s magazine.

RÓNÁN MULLEN, in analysing Valéry Giscard D’Estaing’s draft European constitution (Irish Examiner, June 11), forgot one important point: the French, who gave us Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and Monsieur Guillotine’s revolutionary invention (the bread slicer), are quite capable of anything.

MONEY raised from the expected sale of famed author Iris Murdoch’s working library will create a prestigious scholarship in her name, it emerged yesterday.