Chris Columbus will direct film adaptation of Pointless presenter’s bestselling mystery book about a group of septuagenarian sleuths Three of the four leading roles in the film adaptation of Richard Osman’s bestselling mystery book have...
In this flawed but powerful book, a housing lawyer argues that an abundance of private landlords, not a dearth of homes, is to blame for the miseries of ‘generation rent’ Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the housing crisis could be solved...
Dozens of nominated writers had withdrawn from consideration by literary and free-expression organization The writers group PEN America canceled its 2024 annual awards on Monday, just a week before the ceremony, after facing widespread...
Rather than being an optional extra, dreams might be vital to our functioning Exposed, the undulating surface of the brain is shimmering and opalescent, punctuated with arteries and veins. Give any part of it the tiniest jolt of...
A fresh spin on the sonnet, this subtle contemplation of art, love and language makes the poem into a home Ars Poetica, XI This is the myth of love’s tenderness: that it only heals and cannot wound. After thirty years of spinning around...
A publisher and his authors debate the balance of power between reader and writer in a novel comprising three long, loosely linked tales Early in the UK-based Indian writer Neel Mukherjee’s new novel, Ayush, an editor at a “self-styled...
Cato Pedder, great-granddaughter of South African PM and white supremacist Jan Smuts, uses her family’s legacy to unearth stories of women that shaped, and were shaped by, a troubled nation On 29 May this year, South Africans will go to...
The troubling allure of a real-life gangster is vividly captured in tales from the women who fell for him Boysie Singh was a Trinidadian bogeyman. “Behave yourself,” mothers would warn their naughty children, “or Boysie goyn...
As he publishes his new novel, anti-apartheid legend and former cabinet minister Peter Hain rails against corruption, recalls his warm relationship with the late South African leader and reveals why the lessons of Northern Ireland could...
The Spy by Ajay Chowdhury; A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering by Andrew Hunter Murray; The Kitchen by Simone Buchholz; The Innocents by Bridget Walsh; The Grand Illusion by Syd Moore The Spy by Ajay Chowdhury ( Harvill Secker ,...
The American author on being paid to read in his teens, the allure of graphic novels and the brilliance of Iris Murdoch The book that made me want to be a writer When I was in first grade living in the Boston area, David McCord, a writer...
An unexpected twist on the grief memoir sees the Guardian writer chart the five stages of male-pattern baldness It takes Stuart Heritage almost 30 pages to summon the courage to write about his comb-over days. There are hints of it on...
From a poetic memoir of social repression to a study of the lasting impact of the Cultural Revolution – these titles are a good place to start if you want to know more about the country and its people It is the world’s second-biggest...
In this haunting and restrained novel, a young woman sets out to escape the confines of a Welsh island The remote coastal or island location has become something of a cliche in recent literary fiction, often giving a novel an off-the-peg...
An icon of New York’s downtown music scene is brought vividly to life in this tapestry of archive and oral history In 1966, when he was 15 and growing up in Iowa, Arthur (known then as Charley) Russell wrote a letter to a school pal....
This story of a man running to be union leader in a small Derbyshire town explores grief, guilt and ideological divides On the release of his third novel, 2021’s Booker-longlisted China Room , Sunjeev Sahota noted with some frustration...
A magical scientific exploration of volcanoes, and how they’ve shaped both nature and human destiny Volcanoes are the homes of gods, language tells us – across most of Europe, people who may never have laid eyes on one call them after...
The former PM’s account of her time in office is unstoppably self-serving, petulant, and politically jejune “They didn’t seem to understand,” writes Liz Truss on page 250 of this unstoppably self-serving reworking of Trollope’s He Knew...
A history of our obsession with the end of days – and the culture it has inspired Why do we obsess about the end of the world as we know it? The answer may seem obvious: it’s happening. Covid-19 has killed millions of us, and is still...
A playwright brings unresolved memories to the stage in this clever study of art, dysfunction and generational difference Jo Hamya’s first book, Three Rooms , was a polemical novel about middle-class precarity, sophisticated but...
How one teacher wrestles meaning and relevance from classics of English literature It is a truth universally acknowledged that the books you studied at school are the ones that stick with you for ever. In my case it was Pride and...
An unreliable narrator keeps her husband and readers guessing; the welcome return of burned-out cop Jake Jackson; a multilayered family thriller; and a disturbing boarding school secret We don’t learn the name of the protagonist of...
A book its author ‘would much rather not have needed to write’ ranges far beyond his attempted murder and recovery 10 things we learned from Salman Rushdie’s Knife A couple of nights before he was almost killed by a stranger with a...
He played cello for Allen Ginsberg, nearly joined Talking Heads and was sampled by Kanye West. Now the singular, genre-spanning Russell has the exhaustive study he deserves A secret hero of the dancefloor, the avant garde producer and...
The Booker shortlisted novelist on writing his first significant non-working-class character, the literary critics who inspired him and why he’s not on Facebook Continue reading...
The writer, who was adopted as a baby by Scottish communists, on her life in protest, facing racism in suburban Glasgow, and why her late parents are at the heart of her new collection The Scottish poet and writer Jackie Kay is...
Thanks to Netflix’s moody adaptation, Ripley, there’s more awareness of Highsmith’s skills as an expert writer of guilt, ambivalence and moral dilemmas at odds with reality American novelist Patricia Highsmith was the author of 22 novels...
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has hit back at an accusation she doesn't understand her own books in her latest online trans row, as one critic compared her to Lord Voldemort.
The Belfast novelist on moving between memoir and fiction in his prize-winning debut, turning down a spot on Granta’s best young British novelists list and why Lords of the Rings was his ‘gateway drug’ Continue reading...
His work triumphed at the Oscars, but the Booker-shortlisted author isn’t interested in acclaim. He talks to the Guardian about race, taking on Mark Twain and why there’s nothing worse than preaching to the choir It’s 10am on the morning...
Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some brilliant new paperbacks, from acutely observed novels to a laugh-out-loud memoir Continue reading...
Bashful cats and lonely ponies stalk the pages of this month’s choices Whether slinky and serious or delightfully daft, cats tend to make great picture book stars. They may often excel as witches’ sidekicks, but sometimes simple is best,...
The novelist and nonfiction writer on her love of courtroom drama, the trials of cancel culture and why she wouldn’t have been a good psychoanalyst Helen Garner was born in Geelong, Australia, in 1942. She worked as a teacher and as a...
The YA novelist talks about her early love of Tomb Raider, true crime and fangirling the cast of the BBC adaptation of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder A few minutes into our conversation, bestselling author Holly Jackson is convinced...
Author of sci-fi epic The Three-Body Problem – newly serialised by Netflix – on ‘the greatest uncertainty facing humanity’ and how finding a secret copy of a Jules Verne novel inspired his career Chinese author Liu Cixin’s...
The novels that have left readers most inspired include "All Creatures Great And Small", by James Herriot, and Gerald Durrell's "My Family and Other Animals".
Farming adventures; tales from the set of The Sound of Music; King Arthur reimagined; unrest in near-future London and more One Sweet Song by Jyoti Rajan Gopal and Sonia Sánchez, Walker, £12.99 A single flute note gradually leads a whole...
More than six centuries before the Second World War's most audacious getaway, a nobleman imprisoned by Edward II in the Tower of London made his own courageous bid to scale its walls. ANNE O'BRIEN tells the lesser-known tale of inmate...
World Book Day is in full swing, and while the likes of Paddington Bear and TinTin are legendary, Harry Potter is still the favourite amongst children's favourite characters, according to Trainline and Vogue Williams.
First crushes, Rachel Greenlaw’s YA debut and the story of an improbable affair will make your heart beat faster this month The Heartstopper phenomenon has inspired an explosion of graphic novels. In Cross My Heart and Never Lie by Nora...
EXCLUSIVE: Is James Timpson the nicest man in business? The inspirational boss of Britain's largest service retailer offers days off for birthdays, becoming a grandparent and pet bereavements... and spends £1million a year making his...
While Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett never wrote a sequel, they did sketch out a plot that will now form a second season. If they wanted to continue the story, I want to watch it In 2017, when Neil Gaiman first sat down in St James’s...
The books world was growing worryingly well-mannered, but Ozick’s response – in verse – to a bad review by Shriver has revived the fine art of feuding Whether it is Henry Fielding mocking Samuel Richardson’s painfully virtuous Pamela...
There’s a buzz to sharing your reading life, but for me it turned it into a kind of competition that distracts from what I love about books I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed reading a book where my enjoyment wasn’t tied to the...
The notoriously private author’s latest project, a stylish clothing collaboration with Uniqlo, marks the latest step in his opening up to the world It may be time to stop calling the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami “reclusive” . Over...
Following a recent similar Royal Mint slip-up, the Westminster Collection’s new 50p coins have sent Carroll experts down an internet rabbit hole to source false quotes As Oscar Wilde famously never said, don’t trust Goodreads as a source...