If you buy only one quirky, surreal collection of comedy short stories about relationships this year, make it Simon Rich’s The Last Girlfriend on Earth (Serpent’s Tail, £9.99).

There is something mildly thrilling about sitting in the consulting room of a famous psychoanalyst and asking him a few searching questions about how he feels about the success of his recent book and his motivations for writing it.

Dame Vivien Duffield claims she is tired. The new Jewish community centre for London, to be known as JW3, is approaching completion and Dame Vivien, honoured for her massive philanthropic efforts, says that this may be her last big project.

However, when she discusses JW3 and the influence she hopes it will have on the community, she seems to lack nothing in energy.

Eating cholent has long been seen thought of as the traditional, if not the most dietetic, Shabbat lunch.

However, new research, centring on the Ashkenazi slow-cooked mix of beef, potato, pulses and other ingredients, now points to the exciting possibility that cholent, if eaten in sufficient quantities, could be the key to a longer life.

The most surprising thing about Francesca Segal was that she was in her 30s before she published a novel. Aged three, her imaginary friend was the secretary who would take dictation for her. When she was six, Segal would hand stories she had written over to her father — Erich Segal, the author of Love Story — to take to his publishers.

This extraordinary film was made by Lisa Bryer, the producer of The Last King of Scotland, about her Aunt Henia.

According to the producers, when it was shown to BBC1 controller Danny Cohen, he cleared the schedules so that the film could be the centrepiece of the Holocaust Memorial Day coverage. Having seen the 40-minute documentary, I can only endorse his decision

The demise of the book has long been predicted. Television was forecast to rip us forcefully away from the novel but somehow the written word survived — indeed adaptations of classics such as Pride and Prejudice actually boosted sales.

This is the time of year when many people take a look at their lives and wonder whether they are going in the right direction.

Felix Posen is passionate about secular Jewish culture. If it is not a contradiction, he is positively evangelical about it. And he has also been prepared to invest more than just time into his interest.