With Stig Abell and Thea Lenarduzzi – Marcia Zug on marriage in America (plus the pros and cons of mail-order brides); Laura Freeman on Beatrix Potter's naughty charm; Paul Duguid considers the implications of unrestrained information for all – is more necessarily better?; and finally, Robert Potts reads "Gift", a poem by the concrete poet Ian Hamilton Finlay, first published in the TLS in 1960.