books
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Her Last Tomorrow, Adam Croft’s latest DIY thriller, lifted his bedroom business into the sales stratosphere. He talks about paying off his mortgage in weeks and why he’s fine with publishers being ‘sniffy’
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Memoir Thicker Than Water by Cal Flyn – my ancestor the murderer
Elizabeth LowryA descendant of Angus McMillan, who massacred Indigenous Australians, travels to Gippsland to confront difficult truths
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Book of the day Our Young Man by Edmund White – sparkling and steamy tale of a male model
Neel MukherjeeA beautiful young man ascends the dizzy heights of the fashion world in White’s playful and profound 11th novel -
Abandoning a sociable San Francisco, the young writer moved to New York, where, she explains, she discovered loneliness and literary success.
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Don’t be put off! Works by WG Sebald, Roberto Bolaño and Wallace Shawn and others can help us to see ourselves more clearly and understand life better
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Translated fiction is doing better than ever in the UK, so now seems like a fine time to zero in on a good example. But which?
news
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Tom Holland tells Hay festival the notorious Roman emperor was a conscious populist like the US presidential candidate
Hay festival 2016
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Linguistics expert David Crystal tells Hay festival that school advisers are ‘not aware of complexity of decisions they are asking kids to make’
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Maggie Andrews says members debated how to outwit Nazis and equal rights and were the acceptable face of feminism
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Former Greek finance minister says while he protested against Thatcher he enjoyed how she ‘wiped the floor’ with opposition
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Michael Hayden talks at Hay festival about Edward Snowden and how Facebook, not government, is new privacy battleground
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Salman Rushdie thinks schoolchildren should learn poems by heart, and some experts think that, far from making kids hate poetry, the practice could be ‘life-enhancing’
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Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
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regulars
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Top 10sTop 10sTop 10 books to make you a better personDon’t be put off! Works by WG Sebald, Roberto Bolaño and Wallace Shawn and others can help us to see ourselves more clearly and understand life better
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Reading groupReading groupHelp choose a translated book for June's Reading groupTranslated fiction is doing better than ever in the UK, so now seems like a fine time to zero in on a good example. But which?
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100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time100 Best Nonfiction Books of All TimeThe 100 best nonfiction books: No 18 – The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963)The book that ignited second-wave feminism captured the frustration of a generation of middle-class American housewives by daring to ask ‘is this all?’
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PodcastPodcastMaggie Nelson and Chris Kraus on confessional writing – books podcastMaggie Nelson explains the nuances of tackling gender and sexuality in her genre-bending memoir The Argonauts, while Chris Kraus talks about her 1997 feminist text I Love Dick enjoying a second life in 2016
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Book of the day And the Sun Shines Now by Adrian Tempany – a Hillsborough survivor on the modern game
Andy BeckettA brave and deeply personal history of how the disaster has shaped football -
Paperback of the week The Man with the Golden Typewriter – Ian Fleming’s James Bond letters
Nicholas LezardFleming’s nephew reveals a jokey side to the author in an entertaining book that you don’t have to be a Bond nut to enjoy
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Famous figures open up about their fathers in this poignant blog turned anthology
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This urgent, encyclopedic study explores what freedom of speech means in an age of diversity
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History A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People’s Institution by Travis Elborough
Rachel CookeThere’s plenty to look at in this enjoyable stroll through the history of our public parks, despite a few omissions -
These recently discovered portraits of British soldiers on the Somme are a poignant lesson to us – and to Isis
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A picaresque tale of an ingenu’s travails in mid-18th century Manhattan pays loving tribute to the literature of that era
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Fiction The Bones of Grace by Tahmima Anam
Anthony CumminsThis teasing love story from one of Granta’s best young novelists has some superlative writing but struggles to pull its narrative threads together -
Poetry The Magnitude of My Sublime Existence
Carol RumensSelima Hill’s latest collection draws on the experience of psychiatric patients, metamorphic animals and erotic encounters in search of inner freedom
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Fiction Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vásquez – the late-life crisis of a political cartoonist
Alice O'KeeffeThis story of how a Colombian rebel is embraced by the establishment is promising but problematic -
A philosophical tiger, a bear who pretends to be a bee, strange guests for tea and love among the surfboards – all in the latest picture books and novels
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Fiction A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker – a skilful recreation of Beckett’s war years
Justine JordanThe author of Longbourn illuminates Beckett’s work by dramatising the privation and adventures of his wartime experiences, from his work with the resistance to his long walk south -
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell An audacious account of marital breakdown
Alfred HicklingA former film star withdraws from the world in this latest novel from a compelling chronicler of relationships
people
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The illustrator’s new book of comics, like BoJack Horseman, balances the sombre and the playful, mixing food experiments with family trips to Buenos Aires
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Galbraith’s Career of Evil is one of six titles selected by Theakston for their Old Peculier crime novel of the year
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The author of Nightwalking explains how his walks through London in the small hours revealed ‘the distinctive ecology’ of the metropolis at night
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As the final comic is published, the graphic artist discusses how he started and why he is embracing ‘blur and mush’
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As the 17th and final book in his CHERUB series is published, Robert Muchamore reveals his out-takes reel
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From that killer first line to dealing with writer’s block, author Chris D’Lacey shares his top writing tips
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Want to get a sneak peek at your favourite authors’ teen diaries? Or compete to win the House Cup at a Harry Potter party? Take part in a teen poetry slam? All possible at this year’s Young Adult Literature Convention - we unveil the schedule here!
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From Malala to Anne Frank to Nelson Mandela, picture book biographies bring the real life stories of some of the world’s most celebrated people to life. We picked out some of the best
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From the Cursed Child to Fantastic Beasts to the illustrated version of Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, here’s everything that’s coming to us this year (that we know of) from the world of JK Rowling’s wizarding world
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The story of GR Gemin’s Italian immigrant parents moving to Wales in the 1950s has inspired his new book, Sweet Pizza. One regret: never recording the oral history of his dad before he died
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After winning the world’s largest cash prize for children’s literature, the Astrid Lindgren memorial award, Meg Rosoff has become a literary superstar in Sweden. Here is her account of her whirlwind tour of a country which takes its children’s books seriously
A selection of our favourite literary content from around the world
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The Little Library CaféThe Little Library CaféFood in books: macaroni cheese from Excellent Women by Barbara PymAfter discovering the witty and wonderful Barbara Pym, Kate Young sets out to make a tastier take on the disappointing dish eaten by Mildred Lathbury
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Interview with a Bookstore by Literary HubInterview with a Bookstore by Literary HubInterview with a Bookstore: Papercuts JP, the smallest bookstore in BostonWith only three employees, the creators of the tiny Boston icon talk about growing a community, cosmic dreams and what they’d do with more space
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pictures, video & audio
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Ross Coulthart’s poignant book The Lost Tommies rescues from oblivion previously unseen photos of British combatants near the western front
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Comic book artist Dave McKean – most known for his cover art for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series – has produced a graphic-novel biography of painter Paul Nash, whose dreamlike – or nightmarish – depictions of war explored the psychological scarring that still haunts soldiers today
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Toby Litt’s piece on what makes bad writing bad inspired this hypothetical course for keen learners
you may have missed
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The Pulitzer-winning cancer specialist is back with a study of genes that is also a memoir of his family and its history of mental illness
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As his first novel – the tale of a young charmer in 18th-century New York – comes out, Francis Spufford says he wishes he’d started writing fiction years ago
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The author describes her lettuce-fuelled writing regime, and recuperating with a latte and a cheese scone
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It’s the fourth most populous country in the world, yet it is rare to find an English translation of Indonesian literature that doesn’t focus on war or tsunamis. Why, asks Louise Doughty
popular
Topics
- All today's stories
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- Children and teenagers
- Teen books
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- Festivals
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- Comics and graphic novels
- Children's books: 8-12 years
- Biography
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- Awards and prizes
- Children's books: 7 and under
- Poetry
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- Fiction in translation
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Fiction The Lubetkin Legacy by Marina Lewycka – where are the ordinary people?