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Editors' picks

- Lambeth Palace retrieves stolen collection of rare books
  
  News: Early edition of Shakespeare and historic accounts of expeditions among 1,400 'priceless' books discovered in attic
  
  Lambeth Palace stolen books - in pictures
- Vita Sackville-West's erotic verse to her lover emerges from 'intoxicating night'
  
  News: Scholar finds writer's poem to mistress Violet Trefusis as it falls out of book during conservation work at her Sissinghurst home
- The digital truths traditional publishers don't want to hear
  
  Barry Eisler: The choices offered by digital publishing can only be good news for writers. So why are traditional publishers so angry?
- Editor of Pullman and Haddon bestsellers leaves Random House
  
  News: Authors welcome David Fickling's decision to launch 'small' independent publishing company
- May's reading group: The Great Gatsby
  
  Sam Jordison: As Baz Luhrmann's Gatsby hits the screens, return with us to F Scott Fitzgerald's exquisite novel
- Six novelists on their favourite second artform
  
  Andrew O'Hagan talks to Kazuo Ishiguro, Lavinia Greenlaw, John Lanchester, Alan Warner, Sarah Hall and Colm Tóibín about their passion for a second artform
- Poem of the week: Hymn of Hymns by John Rodker
  
  Carol Rumens: Rodker's eclectic denunciation of religion's repressions, written after the first world war, is funny and unexpectedly sympathetic
- Greg Bellow: My father, Saul
  
  Interview: 'There were a lot of very unhappy people at various points of his life, who felt maligned'
- Michael Rosen tails Emil through Berlin
  
  Books podcast: Michael Rosen goes to Berlin on the trail of Emil and the Detectives. Plus, Swiss German writer Rolf Dobelli explains The Art of Thinking Clearly
- Luc Sante's 'Low Life' is a wonderful look at the seedier history of Manhattan
  RedOnFire
  commenting on Leo Hollis's top 10 books about cities
- 10 of the worst examples of management- speak
  
  Steven Poole drills down into the strangled vocabulary of office jargon
- The New Digital Age by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen
  
  Review: John Naughton on an ambitious attempt to sketch a future dominated by technology
- Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris
  
  Review: David Shariatmadari on a collection of autobiographical essays that is brave, cruel and surprisingly joyful
- Margaret Thatcher: The Authorised Biography, by Charles Moore
  
  Review, Andrew Rawnsley: Charles Moore's authorised life of Thatcher is clear-eyed and rich in telling detail
- The XX Factor by Alison Wolf
  
  Review, Jenny Turner: High-flying women, who have smashed through the glass ceiling, rely on others to keep their homes going
- Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser
  
  Review: AS Byatt admires the originality and depth of a tale of travel and terror
- Meeting the English by Kate Clanchy
  
  Review: Helen Dunmore on a story of survival that shimmers with sensual pleasures

Latest news

Lambeth Palace stolen books - in pictures

30 Apr 2013: Gallery (7 pictures)
Take a look at some of the 1400 books stolen from Lambeth Palace library, which have been found in the attic of a deceased thief
£188m Birmingham library project ready for finishing touch – 2.3m books

29 Apr 2013: Builders pack up and clear out after completing work on biggest public cultural project in Britain, with opening set for September
Amanda Knox book not published in UK 'due to libel laws'

26 Apr 2013: HarperCollins advised not to publish British edition, after concerns arising from retrial and Italian defamation cases. By Mark Sweney
Iron Man 3 international cut angers Chinese bloggers

26 Apr 2013: Internet users in China who have seen international cut of new superhero movie dismayed at lack of airtime for Chinese stars and China-set sequences
Winnie the Pooh author AA Milne was first world war propagandist

26 Apr 2013: Writer was anti-war but new discovery shows he was drafted by military intelligence service MI7b, shut down in 1918

More books news

Regular series

Carol Rumens's poem of the week 18hr 20min ago

Poem of the week: Hymn of Hymns by John Rodker

Rodker's eclectic denunciation of religion's repressions, written after the first world war, is funny and unexpectedly sympathetic
Reading group 21hr 29min ago

May's reading group: The Great Gatsby

It has defeated some of the world's best filmmakers. As Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby hits the screens, return with us to F Scott Fitzgerald's exquisite novel
A life in ... 3 days ago

Greg Bellow: My father, Saul

'My father the Nobel prize winner, the literary genius. It's all true, but it's not the whole picture'
More books series

Latest blogposts

Books blog

Reading group: designing William Golding's The Spire

25 Apr 2013:
Finding the perfect image for a book is always a challenge. Golding's jacket designer Neil Gower explains how it was done
Books blog

The best books on Colombia: start your reading here

24 Apr 2013: Pushpinder Khaneka reviews three Colombian classics that depict a land of magic and mayhem, with an eye on history, drugs and the country's many complexities
Books blog

The best books on Nigeria: start your reading here

23 Apr 2013:
Pushpinder Khaneka's literary tour of Nigeria takes in precolonial times, the fallout of war and the double-edged sword of oil wealth
Books blog

St George's Day launch for a new superhero: Englishman

23 Apr 2013:
David Barnett: The launch of an English graphic counterpart to Captain America is not a hoax. But it's hard to take seriously
Books blog

World Book Night 2013: the books you've loved giving

23 Apr 2013:
The mass public giveaway recalls the more private pleasure of spreading literary love to friends. Please pass on your present preferences

Talking points

- Gatsby may be great, but F Scott Fitzgerald is greater
  
  Baz Luhrmann's film of The Great Gatsby looks set to entertain, but it's Fitzgerald's life story that has to be seen to be believed, writes Robert McCrum

- The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand reviewed by secondthoughts
  
  I would count this as one of the most important books I have ever read.
  
  • More on the Invention of Jewish People by Shlomo Sand
  - Write your own review

Just finished, Wolf Hall. Won't bore people - the book has been clubbed to death with encomiums. Only to say, a lovely writer
condison
commenting on Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading today?

- Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading today?
  
  The space to talk about the books you are reading, and find out which ones we are reviewing

Latest Guardian and Observer reviews

Margaret Thatcher by Charles Moore; Not for Turning by Robin Harris

Lots of new material and a new honesty too? By Andy Beckett
Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, and How We Live by Marlene Zuk

Have Homo sapiens evolved, or should we still be eating a stone age diet, asks Peter Forbes
Meeting the English by Kate Clanchy

Kate Clanchy's story of survival and self-determination shimmers with sensual pleasures, says Helen Dunmore
Moral Crusades in an Age of Mistrust: the Jimmy Savile Scandal by Frank Furedi

A book about the Savile scandal shows no interest in the victims, writes Suzanne Moore
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg

Zoe Williams challenges a goal-driven, infantilising, reactionary guide for ambitious women
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Themes of fate, family life and renewal are brilliantly explored in this story of a life lived in wartime Britain. By Alex Clark
Daphne du Maurier and Her Sisters by Jane Dunn

A rather laboured life of Daphne du Maurier and her sisters disappoints Rachel Cooke
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O'Farrell's sixth novel is another class act, writes Viv Groskop
The Silence of Animals by John Gray

John Gray's latest work finds him unimpressed as ever with the ascent of man, writes Peter Conrad
Turing's Cathedral by George Dyson

John Naughton enjoys George Dyson's sprawling account of the development of the computer
The Childhood of Jesus by JM Coetzee

JM Coetzee's tale of a man and a boy's new life in an imagined socialist state is bewildering, says Ben Markovits
A Treacherous Likeness by Lynn Shepherd

Daisy Hay is unhappy with a novel that paints Frankenstein's creator as a murderous fiend
Revolutionary Iran by Michael Axworthy

An exploration of Iran's development since 1979 into an unpredictable pseudo-democracy impresses James Buchan
The Infatuations by Javier Marías

Is there such as thing as chance, asks Javier Marías's masterly new novel
Exodus by Lars Iyer

Ian Sansom follows the most undynamic duo since Vladimir and Estragon as they continue their ramblings on the death of philosophy

Latest reader reviews

The Third Policeman
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Oswald's Book of Hours
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Burning Bright
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Bodyguard: Hostage (book 1)
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A Measured Response
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Eating Things on Sticks
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Pip, Pip, Hooray!
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Without Blood
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The British Dream: Successes and Failures of Post-war Immigration
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Mr Bloom's Nursery: The Pirate Veggies!

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Always and Forever
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by James Hogg (author), David Groves, Ian Rankin and Andre Gide

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She Rises: A Novel
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Zoe and Beans: The Magic Hoop
by Chloe Inkpen and Mick Inkpen

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Mr. Greedy and the Gingerbread Man
by Roger Hargreaves

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Babies, Babies, Babies!
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God Bless the NHS
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Imperium
by Robert Harris

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The Outsider
by Albert Camus (author) and Sandra Smith

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Red Sorghum
by Mo Yan

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Panda Panic
by Jamie Rix (author) and Sam Hearn (illustrator)

Reviewed by actiongirl
What's for Dinner, Mr Gum?
by Andy Stanton (author) and David Tazzyman (illustrator)

Reviewed by actiongirl
The Invention of the Jewish People
by Shlomo Sand

Reviewed by secondthought
NW
by Zadie Smith

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Netymology: From Apps to Zombies: A Linguistic Celebration of the Digital World
by Tom Chatfield

Reviewed by words1
Politics
by Adam Thirlwell

Reviewed by Udith Dematagoda
The Other Typist
by Suzanne Rindell

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Inca Trails: Journey Through The Bolivian and Peruvian Andes
by Martin Li

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Zog
by Julia Donaldson (author) and Axel Scheffler

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Well Done, Dougal!
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Idiopathy
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Silent Saturday: Forbidden Spaces Trilogy: Book One
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When the Rains Come
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