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After the death of her mother, the Russian journalist MASHA GESSEN discovered that she had a gene mutation that predisposed her to breast and ovarian cancer. She discusses the difficult decisions she faced and how genetic testing is revolutionising our sense of identity. She looks at how testing is being used around the world and wonders what new legal and ethical frameworks we need to face these new challenges. Blood Matters: A Journey Along the Genetic Frontier is published by Granta Books.

The war in Iraq, the stand-off with Iran, the regular failures to find a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the continuing danger posed by al Qaeda all testify to the intractability of the Middle East’s problems. PROFESSOR SIR LAWRENCE FREEDMAN argues that it is possible to trace the current predicament back three decades and examines the pressures and trade offs facing American presidents in choosing who to befriend and who to confront. A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Four years after he stepped down as Home Secretary, DAVID BLUNKETT is returning to the criminal justice system. His new TV series, Banged Up, takes 10 teenage boys who have become involved in crime and puts them in a ‘prison’ for 10 days with reformed ex-offenders and with Blunkett as the head of their parole board. But it is the preventative work the boys encounter ‘inside’, Blunkett argues, that shows that prison just doesn’t work. Banged Up starts on 7 July on Channel Five.

According to Government figures, over 5 million adults in Britain can’t read or write well enough to cope with modern life. In a new TV series, the teacher PHIL BEADLE tackles the problem by attempting to teach nine illiterate adults how to read and write in only six months. Can’t Read, Can’t Write starts on Channel 4 on 21 July.