Editors' picks
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Isabel Hilton reports on the explosion of capitalism that is transforming China's ancient capital
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Seven of the city's foremost creative talents, from a novelist to a techno queen, tell us about the excitement - and the dangers - of working in a city where hardline communism and rampant capitalism fight to exist side by side
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'I work from 8am to 8pm. I had to leave my two-year-old son behind'
From a migrant maid who works 'like a spinning top' to a patriotic lifelong resident, we meet four typical workers
Features and reviews p7
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Cultural revolutionary
He's China's equivalent of Andy Warhol, but the artist who inspired Beijing's Olympic Stadium won't be attending the opening ceremony. An outspoken critic of the government, he has never forgiven them for sending his father into exile. By Rachel Cooke
Features and reviews p8
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Top gear, please, and step on it
What becomes immediately apparent on entering the 10th annual Beijing car show is the emotional intensity with which China has thrown itself into its greatest consumerist passion to date: the first throes of an almost Jeremy Clarksonesque affair with the car
Features and reviews p10
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Will you have a 1,000-year-old egg with your twisted intestine, Madam?
Don't expect to find anything like your average Chinese takeway. The real thing is much more exotic - and delicious
Features and reviews p13
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China's new freedom fighters
Countless thousands of people in China are blacklisted, harassed, intimidated and locked up merely for what they say or because of the job they do
Features and reviews p14
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The shape of things to come
Beijing has rebuilt itself faster than any city on earth, turning from a warren of alleys into a capital fit for a superpower. No wonder the world's top architects - from Foster to Koolhaas - have flocked to make their mark on it. Here, the director of the Design Museum judges the stand-out buildings of the new era
Features and reviews p16
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Enter Kylie, left, right and centre
Pop: Visual overkill leaves fans in a trance. But then, at last, pop's Cleopatra stands still and sings...
Features and reviews p19
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Who's been sleeping in my bed?
Film of the week: Richard Jenkins deserves an Oscar nod for his role as an American who bonds with a Muslim couple -
Screen legends
No 22: Joel McCrea 1905-90
Features and reviews p20
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Hancock
Philip French: A feel-good summer movie that ends up a confused festival of sentimentality and special effects -
Mes amis, mes amours
Philip French: A dim 'odd couple' comedy set in a touristic London -
Kung Fu Panda
Philip French: The latest DreamWorks animated feature is a great deal of fun, devoid of romantic interest, avoiding sententious moral platitudes until the final reel and with no songs until the end credits -
Death Note: The Last Name
Philip French: The second part of what is shaping up as an unnecessary trilogy where the cast ends up being strangled by a serpentine plot -
My Winnipeg
Philip French: Amusing, elegant, inconsequential and it doesn't overstay its limited welcome -
Chop Suey
Philip French: A meandering autobiographical picture by New York-based Bruce Weber, a celebrated fashion photographer noted, among other things, for his homoerotic works -
The Mist
Philip French: A ruthless horror movie that is unusually harrowing and relentless in its apocalyptic pessimism
Features and reviews p21
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Interesting idea, but has it got legs?
Art: Martin Creed's new work has athletes sprinting round Tate Britain. Olympic champion Jonathan Edwards tells Emma John what he makes of it -
He didn't get out much, for which we should be truly grateful
Art: The Vilhelm Hammershøi show opens up into a fascinating world of interiors -
In search of the perfect Glastonbury loo
Radio: The BBC went Glasto-mental this year. At one point, it seemed there were more festival-based programmes than the combined coverage of tennis, football and the Zimbabwean elections
Features and reviews p22
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DVD reviews
Small Engine Repair | The Bucket List | Picnic at Hanging Rock -
Classical CD releases
Various | Various | Tchaikovsky -
CD releases
Patti Smith & Kevin Shields | Black Kids | Albert Hammond Jr | Nico Muhly | Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis | Alec Dankworth -
You can take the boy out of Bristol...
CD of the week: Tricky, Knowle West Boy -
There Will Be Blood 2007
DVD of the week: There Will Be Blood 2007
Features and reviews p24
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Tents and sensibility
Theatre: Tradition triumphs in Cheltenham as circus meets theatre, but excess nostalgia palls in Liverpool -
Festival Watch
Festival Watch: Glastonbury, Pilton, Somerset -
Vroom to spare
Theatre: Harald Lander's 1948 ballet Etudes is like an MOT test. If a company can get through it, they're probably in pretty good shape -
Death becomes them
Classical: Britten's War Requiem hits home in challenging acoustics, while Sibelius is too cold for comfort
Features and reviews p25
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Summer reading: how to pick the right book for any trip
A Room With a View might be perfect for a Tuscan villa, but what should you read at the Burning Man festival or while cooped up with the kids in a West Country cottage? Six leading writers select the best books to take with you - whatever type of holiday you're going on
Features and reviews p26
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Where have all the psychos gone?
Review: Fishing in Utopia by Andrew Brown
Ignore what its crime writers say: it turns out Sweden isn't brimming with neo-Nazis, paedophiles and jihadis after all -
A passionate end to a bohemian rhapsody
Review: The Spare Room by Helen Garner
Helen Garner has written a moving account of one woman's death
Features and reviews p29
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Zionism in the dock
Review: Journey to Nowhere by Eva Figes
Eva Figes launches a vituperative attack on Israel -
From the dogs of war to ordinary Joes with guns
Review: War Plc by Stephen Armstrong
The rise of the professional mercenary in the aftermath of the intervention in Iraq raises worrying questions about legitimacy and accountability
Features and reviews p30
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Second love
Rachel Redford on Sons and Lovers -
Hitler's filmmaker
Sean O'Hagan on Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl -
Reading for the throne
Mary Fitzgerald on The Uncommon Reader | The People on Privilege Hiil | Fault Lines | Veronica -
Drinking days
Mary Fitzgerald on Bit of a Blur | Diamonds, Gold and War | Paper Houses
Features and reviews p31
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A long week's journey into knives
Kathryn Flett on television: Criminal Justice, BBC 1, Fallout, C4
