He was described as tall and dark and looking like a countryman, his health was weak, and he was said to be shy. Two thousand years after his death, his readership is not what it once was, but Virgil still has a claim as one of the world's greatest and most influential writers, whose work defined many of the values of western civilisation. Richard Coles discusses Peter Levi 's new study Virgil - His Life and Times.
Plus Bill Buford of the New Yorker provides his weekly comment on cultural life across the Atlantic.
And a week-long series, Brecht Bites, marks the 100th anniversary of Bertolt Brecht's birth.
Producer Julian May