Artists, gallerists and collectors vie for power in a rollicking mystery that pokes fun while also examining desire and regret James Cahill’s debut novel, Tiepolo Blue , was full of interesting things but weakened by implausibilities. In...
In the American writer’s wry, understated second short story collection, the past comes back to jolt her largely middle-aged characters Curtis Sittenfeld is irresistibly drawn to the awkward: to the geeks, and to those who are not quite...
The journalist’s debut novel about a London girl gang of the 1950s expertly toys with gender and explores young people’s place in the world In Kelly Frost’s fast-paced debut novel, girls rule the streets. It’s 1957 in Finsbury Park,...
A globe-spanning study of the waste industry reveals how wealthy nations dump their garbage on the poor while the rate at which we produce near-indestructible rubbish only increases You know the drill: plastic and glass containers go in...
This powerful new book examines the moral contradictions of the west and asks what liberal values mean in the face of such brutal and sustained obliteration of human life Like many people, I have followed the unrelenting horror that has...
The Hungarian-English author on addressing what it’s like to be a male body in the world, learning the tricks of literature from Frederick Forsyth, and the feeling of nearly winning the Booker David Szalay, 51, grew up in London and now...
From George Orwell to Hannah Arendt and John le Carré, thousands of blacklisted books flooded into Poland during the cold war, as publishers and printers risked their lives for literature The volume’s glossy dust jacket shows a...
When US music journalist Stanley Booth, who recently died aged 82, went on the road with the Stones in late 1969, he witnessed first hand their extraordinary transformation into the world's greatest rock ‘n' roll band...
A wide-ranging and thoroughly entertaining portrait not just of Queen Elizabeth II but of the psyche of her subjects The funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 was watched by around 28 million people in the UK alone. In her lifetime, she...
The poet and novelist on having his heart broken by Animal Farm, imagining Ibsen and Chekhov characters as Nigerian, and ditching physics for Plato My earliest reading memory In London, reading my dad’s copy of the Times at four. It...
From sparkling dialogue to surprise character traits, wit, humour and tragedy, this is the year to appreciate Austen This year marks what would have been Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, and getting stuck into the great Regency writer’s...
A slice-of-life portrait of a community suffering the after-effects of the second world war Austrian novelist Robert Seethaler is known for his restrained and sensitive novels that illuminate the struggles and joys of peripheral lives....
A dogged account of how the quest for a treatment may have been set back years by fraudulent evidence Living to old age is quite literally the best thing that any of us could hope for, given the alternative. It’s a cruel irony, then,...
Family relationships are explored in this finely executed tale of two brothers drawn into bear poaching in rural Montana The setting of Callan Wink’s second novel is the American wilderness. Brothers Thad and Hazen struggle to make a...
A Marxist critique of left-liberal politics that delivers its message with punch and panache The British left used to be a force to reckon with. Edward Heath’s government was famously felled by the miners in 1974 – the only instance...
The complicated life and passionate love affairs of Great Britain’s first monarch Five years before the gunpowder plot, an attempt was made on the life of James Stuart. That was what he claimed, at any rate. Yet the facts of the matter...
This book within a book weaves a writer’s struggles with scenes from their Africanfuturist tale of post-apocalyptic robots In Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor, one of the most acclaimed science fiction writers of our time, moves into...
Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some exciting new paperbacks, from politicians’ visions for the UK to a Booker shortlisted novel Continue reading...
A deep dive into the world of making things that means you’ll never look at your kettle in quite the same way again It’s some measure of the extent of urbanisation that the bookends to our day may not be birdsong but the sound of a...
The Tiepolo Blue author’s impressive second novel is an enthrallingly intricate portrait of the art world James Cahill’s first novel, Tiepolo Blue , charted the sexual liberation and psychic disintegration of an uptight Cambridge art...
The scorned woman thriller deftly reimagined, preposterously gripping murders at an ice skating training camp - and a frantic search for a missing daughter The protagonist of Chris Bridges’s Sick to Death (Avon) is not your...
O’Donnell brings the spare intensity of her award-winning short stories to her first novel, a compulsive tale of one woman’s escape intensified by Dublin’s housing crisis When it comes to escaping an abusive relationship, it’s said that...
The TV reporter’s struggles with depression and the suicide of his father, whose own father killed himself, prompt this incisive, highly personal investigation J ames Longman is an English broadcast journalist who was the BBC’s man in...
This courageous, melancholy memoir, about the author’s struggle to reconcile his faith with his sexuality, argues that homophobia is a cultural phenomenon, not a religious edict A few years ago I wanted to write about gay life in...
In a nuanced stand-alone sequel, the Irish novelist revisits the lovers from her second book – and finds two lives even more complicated, messy and human than before In literary terms, Britain was a duller place 15 years ago: Booker...
In the Yorkshire author’s first memoir, she recounts in tender, sometimes showy prose her difficult relationship with her complex mother and brushes with danger in her thrill-seeking years Adelle Stripe is the author of one novel, Black...
The American novelist is known for his best-selling legal thrillers. He has written 37 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers and sold 300 million copies worldwide.
The leftwing political commentator on gen Z’s disillusionment with democracy, why she’s a ‘Mantel stan’ and the moral panic behind her first book Ash Sarkar, 32, is a journalist and political commentator. She grew up in north London and...
Producer Lissa Evans reveals in her new book how one James Bond legend almost swapped his dinner jacket for a cassock as she looks back on the iconic sitcom with a fond eye
At 83, The Accidental Tourist author discusses the secret to a good marriage, publishing her 25th book and why she can no longer keep politics out of her novels “I’m ashamed,” Anne Tyler says of the publication of her new novel, Three...
It’s been 11 years since she published a novel. In that time, the author has lost both parents, seen Trump become president twice – and finally returned to fiction after a bruising reaction to her comments on gender I arrive early to...
In a rare glimpse into his literary influences, Stephen King unveiled a list of his top books, showcasing a fascinating mix of renowned and obscure titles.
From seeing things to hearing voices, there’s a finer line between hallucination and reality than you might suppose When did you last hallucinate? “The visionary tendency is much more common among sane people than is generally...
Having read about relocating to the Falklands in the Sunday Express back in the 70s, Rob Burnett's family upped sticks and moved 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic. He reveals why he decided to follow in their footsteps.
The author and journalist on ‘modern London corruption’ and his Orwell prize-shortlisted novel Caledonian Road, how he helped Jonathan Franzen and the last book he gave as a gift Journalist, novelist and cafe owner Andrew O’Hagan, 56,...
Authors and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month Everyone else got there a long time ago but I’ve only recently read Adrian Tchaikovsky’s sci-fi masterpiece Children of Time . Cautionary, richly...
A bookshop becomes a sanctuary in a post-apocalyptic romance, a connection is forged through food – and a codebreaker learns the language of big beasts L et the Light In (David Fickling) sees award-winning writer Jenny Downham join...
The award-winning author on his move from short stories to novels, writing marginal characters in small-town Mayo and the Irish fiction he rates most Born in Canada in 1982, Colin Barrett was raised near Ballina, County Mayo, and though...
As he embarks on a quartet of novels following one family, the Malaysian author talks about storytelling, family silences – and the legacy of colonialism Twenty years into his life as a published novelist, Tash Aw is considering the...
With protests on the streets of Seoul, the celebrated writer talks about the painful process of uncovering her country’s brutal past - and how it felt to win the Nobel prize On 10 December last year, the novelist and poet Han Kang had...
Animal magic, little dinosaurs, dangerous strangers, death-flies and zombies, four lost girls who live wild in the woods and more Our Love by Fátima Ordinola, Post Wave, £12.99 This adorable animal-themed picture book conveys the love...
From ecology-saving zombies to a murderous tattoo and a chilly new school for magic, the new year launches with fresh twists on familiar themes In with the new! Publishing can be slow to wake from its Twixtmas carb-loading. But the early...
Cosy crime, eco-thrillers, political memoirs, YA fantasy: there’s something for everyone in our pick of the books to look out for in the months ahead Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Jonathan Cape, out now) Continue reading...
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...