Bringing down Bear Stearns. With the blow-by-blow from insiders, Bryan Burrough follows the players—Bear’s stunned executives, trigger-happy reporters at CNBC, a nervous Fed, a shadowy group of short-sellers—in what some believe was the greatest financial scandal in history. — Vanity Fair

Rolling Stone reviews Heath’s last movie. “I don’t want to kill you,” Heath Ledger’s psycho Joker tells Christian Bale’s stalwart Batman. “You complete me.” Don’t buy the tease. He means it. — Rolling Stone

Read any bloody terrible books lately? Which books, hitherto universally acclaimed, were terrible or over-rated or just plain dull? My own choice of book that went straight from my hand to a recycling bin was Michael Chabon’s ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Union’.  — The Word

Now you need a license to interact with children. A new pamplet called Licensed to Hug, argues that child protection policies in Britain are poisoning the relationship between the generations and damaging the voluntary sector. — Spiked