Six of the Best 611

Peter Black says: "The opposition party leaders need to calm down. A snap General Election is not necessary and they are being rather silly to call for one." And he's right.

"No serious person believes that Jeremy Corbyn can win a General Election; yet the old men at the top of British trade union movement continue to back a useless leader because he plays a nostalgic tune that they and a dwindling number of their comrades recognise." James Bloodworth argues that Labour is becoming a historical re-enactment society.

Rewild our trashed hills, demands Mark Avery.

Kate Connolly on the English schoolboys who perished in the Black Forest in 1936 and became the centre of a Nazi publicity coup. Do read the comments too.

"His sister glanced away, as if trying one last time to arrange all the pieces. Then she said, 'I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure what really happened. Unlike in detective stories, we have to live without answers.'" David Grann examines the mysterious death of a Sherlock Holmes scholar.

Paul Gallagher remembers the glory days of Pan Books.