His Dark Materials writer Philip Pullman on Billie Piper, Hollywood studios and daemons as he answers some of your questions.

Actor Keanu Reeves gives journalists short shrift as he promotes science-fiction remake The Day the Earth Stood Still.

From a commodity hunted for its bone and blubber to a potent symbol of the environment, the whale has long held value. And the 150-year-old novel Moby-Dick is remarkably prescient about its fate, says writer Philip Hoare.

The conflict in Georgia has awoken fears of a new Cold War between Russia and its allies and the West, nearly 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But will the animosity come back to haunt Western imaginations as it once did?

With novels such as A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago, the Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn exposed the tyranny of the Soviet system.

Salman Rushdie's epic novel has been named Best of the Booker. How might those who have not read it appear erudite? By reading a precis of course.

Chronicles of Narnia sequel Prince Caspian has 'more grit' than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, its director tells the BBC.

Julianne Moore and Gail Garcia Bernal turn in a taut, psychological drama which is a fitting opener for the Cannes Film Festival.

Masked raiders make off with four paintings in a daring daylight raid on a museum in Nice in the south of France.

Former probation officer Mike Barlow wins the prestigious National Poetry Competition.

Russian-born, New York-based singer Regina Spektor talks about her long journey to chart success.

Is the Superman Returns movie meant to remind us of the Bible? And if so, is it blasphemy?

Actor Kevin Spacey explains how he gave a much darker edge to villain Lex Luthor in Superman Returns.

The man wanting to convert the Dome into a casino is a shrewd entrepreneur with a conservative political agenda.

Batwoman's become a lesbian, Spider-Man's an emotional wreck and the X-Men are a "parable of oppression" - the old-fashioned comic superhero has been vanquished.

The Da Vinci Code is one of the greatest phenomena in the history of fiction publishing and the juggernaut rolls on with the arrival of the movie version. But why are we so profoundly obsessed with a thriller about the Church?

A historian accuses The Da Vinci Code author of plagiarism, days after a similar claim was rejected.

Hundreds of thousands of people protest across the US against plans to tighten the law on immigration.

A Muslim theatre company is to tour a play in which a mother explains to her son about his suicide bomber father.

BBC Europe Editor Mark Mardell on Poland's view of the UK's EU budget proposals, a fly-on-the-wall documentary and Belgium's Black Peter.