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John Eliot Gardiner will be celebrating his 70th birthday with a Bach marathon at the Royal Albert Hall in London. On the 1st April, over nine hours, he will conduct his own Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists and introduce leading performers in Bach chamber and solo works. The Royal Albert Hall?s Eastertide Bach Marathon will be broadcast on Radio 3, with a supporting documentary shown 2 days previously, on the 30th March, on BBC2. His own biography of Bach, Music in the Castle of Heaven, will be published by Penguin in October.

Dr Adam Rutherfod, author of Creation: The Origin and The Future of Life, is to present this year's Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture. With a special guest introduction from Stephen Mangan, Adam will discuss how, after four billion years of evolution, and a century of taking cells apart to find out how they work, we have a pretty robust understanding of DNA, evolution and the mechanics of life, and the way scientists are just beginning to put them back together to do two things: recreate the origin of life, and invent new lifeforms to kick-start a global industrial revolution. The lecture takes place tonight at The Royal Geographical Society. Click here for more information.

Dr Kevin Fong talks about his first book 'Extremes: Life, Death and the Limits of the Human Body'.

This week on BBC Radio 4?s ?From Our Own Correspondent? programme,Tim Butcher meets up with an old friend and Kosovan refugee, who brings back memories of time spent together in the former war zone. Follow this link to listen again. Tim's third book, The Trigger: The Journey That Led the World to War in 1914, will be published in 2014 to coincide with the centenary of the beginning of the First World War.

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian and amateur pianist, set himself the seemingly impossible task of conquering Chopin?s Ballade in G Minor, described as 'one of the hardest pieces in the repertoire', in just one year. This video is a short introduction to his endeavour. PLAY IT AGAIN: An Amateur Against the Impossible, his full account of this inspiring and unbelievable feat, will be published by Jonathan Cape tomorrow.

A great start to 2013; Pirates! Band of Misfits, the Aardman film based on the brilliant Pirates! series, by Gideon Defoe, has been nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the Oscars 2013. Results will be announced at the official ceremony on the 24th February. Click here for more information.

The launch party for The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones, complete with anatomical heart cake and elusive white owl, was a huge success. What better setting for the introduction of Tristan Hart, madman and medical genius, to the world than The Old Operating Theatre, London Bridge. Photos can be seen, here, on the book?s Facebook page.

The Sunday Times named A Foreign Country their thriller of the year yesterday! ?Charles Cumming deservedly won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award earlier this month for A Foreign Country (HarperCollins), in which a disgraced spook hunts for Amelia Levene, who has disappeared shortly before becoming MI6?s first female boss. Often compared to John le Carr?, Cumming here emerges from his shadow in a thriller that has everything you could ask for ? a twisty, sexy plot, topical themes, memorable characters and plentiful spy lore.? John Dugdale

To mark the release of Advent by James Treadwell, Hodder is offering readers the chance to win a range of great titles in an online treasure hunt. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is find all five of these 'e-flyers' hidden on blogs across the web, each one featuring a quote from Advent. Once you've found them all, send a message containing the names of the blogs to facebook.com/hodderscape and claim your prize. The books up for grabs are Advent by James Treadwell, Daughter Of Smoke And Bone by Laini Taylor, The Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky, The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde and The Gunslinger by Stephen King.

Click here to read the first in a series of regular blog posts from Jack Wolf, exploring the myths and legends behind his debut novel, The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones which is published by Chatto & Windus on 3rd January.

Art historian and critic Jonathan Jones details the fierce 16th century competition in Florence, Italy, between Leonardo da Vinci and his much younger rival, Michelangelo on The Diane Rehm Show. Follow this link to listen again.

Charles Cumming has won this year?s CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, awarded by the Crime Writers Association for the year?s best thriller in the vein of Ian Fleming. His A Foreign Country beat off competition from Megan Abbott, Robert Harris and Neal Stephenson. The judges said that this contemporary spy thriller had ?? a gripping premise, expertly sustained, lots of believable spycraft and memorable supporting characters.? Responding, he said ?For spy writers, the Steel Dagger is our Booker prize, so I?m thrilled to have won such a prestigious award. Some great writers have picked up the Steel Dagger, including Henry Porter, Dan Fesperman and Tom Rob Smith. I?m honoured to have joined their ranks.? He was presented with his cheque and a unique handcrafted ?steel dagger?, inspired by the weapon used by Special Forces during World War II, at the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards, which took place in a glittering ceremony at Grosvenor House, London, on Thursday. The result will be televised on ITV3 on Tuesday 23rd October.

Switch on to BBC 4 at 8.30 pm on Thursday night to watch Rob Penn explore the great Britsh love affair with trees in 'Tales from the Wild Wood'. A year ago, Rob took over the management of Strawberry Cottage Wood, 50 acres of abandoned broadleaf woodland at the entrance to Llanthony Valley, in the beautiful Black Mountains, south east Wales. In each episode of this six part series Rob, through the day to day management of the woods, explores the issues affecting British woodlands today: is man good for woods? Can woodlands pay? How do we value them in non-economic ways? Will our woods survive the future? He also examines our own historical relationship with woods using fascinating archives to recall the time when they employed thousands of people and provided the backbone for self-sustaining rural industries. Follow this link to watch on iplayer and find out more.

Charles Cumming's latest thriller, A FOREIGN COUNTRTY, was awarded Scottish Crime Book of the Year at the Bloody Scotland festival in Firth on the 16th. Charles?s sixth novel follows disgraced spy Thomas Kell's search for Amelia Levene, who goes missing shortly after learning she is to become the first female head of MI6. The book was praised by the chair of the judging panel, Sheena McDonald, as ?Exciting, imaginative and well-written... simply an outstanding novel.?