Steven Soderbergh’s new film Presence this week heralds the return of a cinematic technique familiar to many fans of scary movies: the point-of-view shot. Viewing a scene through the eyes of an antagonist – such as the extended opening of John Carpenter’s Halloween – can be a chilling way of drawing viewers into the action, making us feel like we are both the watcher and being watched.

“It’s time to scratch off another item from the ‘what makes humans unique’ list,” concludes biologist Lee Dugatkin. Animals, too, have complex social networks — as his entertaining book about species around the world demonstrates. A vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), for instance, shares more blood with a starving one if the latter had been generous with food when the former was hungry.

Virginia Woolf disliked being photographed, painted or sculpted. Posing for both Stephen Tomlin and Vanessa Bell during a single day in 1931, she complained afterwards of feeling like “a piece of whalebone bent”, and fled Tomlin’s sitting before he had a chance to finish the sculpture.

Anyone familiar with Islamic art will long have known how heavily William Morris drew his inspiration from the Islamic world. One glance at his patterns is enough – the repetition to infinity, the twisting foliage, the richly entangled fruit and birdlife, the stylized designs that are often botanically impossible, yet speak to us at some deep primordial level – all are hallmarks of Islamic art.

Apart from Christianity, Islam and perhaps liberalism, no ideology has had more global influence on political and social organization than Marxism. A generation ago, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire, many believed that influence was likely to vanish. Yet it lives on.

Apart from Christianity, Islam and perhaps liberalism, no ideology has had more global influence on political and social organization than Marxism. A generation ago, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire, many believed that influence was likely to vanish. Yet it lives on.

Like many academics who write about philosophy or religion, I get a lot of emails from people keen to share their life stories, spiritual insights and cosmological theories. Now and then a handwritten letter arrives: most recently, on lined yellow paper with a fetching picture of pink unicorns sellotaped to the top.

Last month, I was working with a young homeless family on England’s south coast. The local council had found them a privately rented flat with an agreed rent, and provided a “landlord incentive” payment of £1,500. But, when the council emailed the landlord to confirm the arrangements, he replied to say that he was increasing the rent by £100 a month because “the market is moving in that direction”.

Having thoroughly enjoyed Tariq Ali’s earlier autobiographical book, Street Fighting Years, and having more than appreciated many other works such as his widely read and timely The Clash Of Fundamentalisms, it’s nice to report that this latest momentous tome was in no way a disappointment.

There is a well-worn acceptance today that we are in the midst of a terrible housing crisis. News of unaffordable rents, growing rates of homelessness and poor-quality properties stalks the headlines. If you’re under 40 with dreams of home ownership, you can probably forget about it. But what if the UK’s want of adequate, affordable housing is actually just the way things are, and perhaps have always been?