books
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Slam poetry, TED talks: they’re for short attention spansThe award-winning author on race, satire and watching samurai films with his mother -
Thatcher's London and the role of the artist in a time of political changeAn Artist of the Floating World was written in the early 80s, years of crucial, often fractious and bitter transition in Britain. The author recalls how attempts to transform the country influenced his approach to the novel
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Author seeks Van Gogh lookalikes for art projectGeneration X author offers €5,000 prize to person who most closely resembles red-haired painter -
Quentin Blake's unpublished illustrations of The BFGQuentin Blake guides us through the remarkable story of his collaboration with Roald Dahl to make The BFG
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The UK has been torn in two, like a bad poemJourneying through idyllic country to meet another great crowd in Crickhowell is the joyous prelude to a dark night watching the polls
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Jonathan Coe wins 'bittersweet' honour from France as UK turns back on EuropeAuthor describes mixed feelings after being declared Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters, in a week when the UK voted to leave the EU
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The apps that turn books into 15-minute readsMany readers will recoil from these radically boiled-down versions of titles like A Brief History of Time. Me too, until I started reading them
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I’ve even known players who hate Harry PotterFrom Uganda to Pakistan, quidditch teams from all around the world are gearing up for the international competition of JK Rowling’s fictional sport in Germany in July. But if you can’t fly a broomstick - why would you play?
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regulars
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Top 10sTop 10sTop 10 books about the BeatlesPaul McCartney’s biographer picks out the best work in a field that has often been marked by ‘leaden paragraphs overstuffed with show-offy facts’
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Reading groupReading groupRussian literature webchat – post your questions nowConcluding our look at The Master and Margarita, we will be joined by Hugh Aplin on Wednesday 29 June at 1pm to talk about translating Bulgakov’s novel and how to read Russian literature
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100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time100 Best Nonfiction Books of All TimeThe 100 best nonfiction books: No 21 – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S Kuhn (1962)The American physicist and philosopher of science coined the phrase ‘paradigm shift’
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PodcastPodcastThe art of memory with Abby Smith Rumsey and Simon Bill – books podcastWe explore memory and forgetting with a fictional artist who struggles with recall and a cultural historian examining the past to solve present troubles with data storage
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Free Speech by Timothy Garton Ash – coping with the internet as ‘history’s largest sewer’
Technology Free Speech by Timothy Garton Ash – coping with the internet as ‘history’s largest sewer’
This is a thought-provoking manifesto for a ‘connected world’, a suggested agreement on how we disagree. But is freedom of expression what Garton Ash says it is? -
Empire of Things by Frank Trentmann – a fascinating history of consumersThis history of consumption is broad in scope, from Ming-era China to the pleasures of online shopping. But it is riven by a contradiction
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Nervous flyers should get this book on prescriptionMark Vanhoenacker has written a beautiful, contemplative book that reveals nature’s wonders and reassures worried flyers
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White Sands: Experiences From the Outside World by Geoff DyerThe less promising his subject, the more brilliant Geoff Dyer gets in this collection of essays on travel and art
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Pimp State: Sex, Money and the Future of Equality by Kat BanyardThis vital study exposes the myths promoted by defenders of the sex trade
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In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi – an elegant masterpieceSusan Faludi’s funny, painful investigation of identity centres on her father’s gender reassignment and a family history of Hungary under Nazi occupation
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A fascinating work of artThis sprawling, complex novel is a powerful exploration of personal and historical trauma
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A panoramic portrait of New YorkWhitman, Mapplethorpe and Edmund White star in Megan Bradbury’s beautifully written debut about what defines America’s most famous city
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A masterpiece of feminist horrorTen women are abducted and held prisoner in the Australian outback in Charlotte Wood’s powerful modern-day parable
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Joe Hill makes the apocalypse feel real and visceralJoe Hill’s follow-up to NOS4R2 envisages a world overcome by a fungus that causes spontaneous human combustion
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A grisly tale of chopping down people and treesProulx’s sprawling ecological saga is rich in incident but lacks the human touch
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An impressive first collectionJohnson’s surreal and atmospheric stories are set in a liminal landscape where girls become eels
people
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Chris Riddell wins the Kate Greenaway medalChris Riddell is the first triple winner of the CILIP Kate Greenaway medal for his illustrations in Neil Gaiman’s retelling of Sleeping Beauty. We talk to him about how it feels to win and his love for Gaiman and libraries
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Simon Mawer's Tightrope wins historical fiction awardDrama of concentration camp survivor, set in 1950s London, praised by judges as ‘a spy story in the grand tradition’
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Robyn Sisman, 1949-2016Author of six novels and editor who launched Robert Harris’s career as a novelist with Fatherland
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Trump will continue to shoot himself in the footThe New Yorker writer reflects on Donald Trump’s election chances, his megalomania and why he once sent him a cheque for $37
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Celebrating five years of the Guardian children's books siteThe Guardian is changing how it covers children’s books – here we look back at some of the highlights of the Guardian children’s books site since 2011
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The Grand Pancake Race, a winning story – in picturesWilliam Thompson is the winner of the Reading Zone's picture book competition. Read his story right here!
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4 reasons to fall in love with poetryChildren’s books site member Safah has just discovered the fantastically varied, powerful and engaging world of written and performance poetry. Here are four reasons why you should give it a chance
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… a bear dressed up as a beeIt might sound weird but when you think about bears liking honey so much… Nadia Shireen shows you how to do it!
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Tigers in children's booksFrom Tyger to Tigger, Lizzy Stewart picks her top tigers in fiction, of all different shapes, sizes and stripes
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'Do you remember the taste of strawberries?'From Enid Blyton to Harper Lee, here are some of the hottest summer quotes from children’s and teen fiction
A selection of our favourite literary content from around the world
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The Little Library CaféThe Little Library CaféFood in books: gravlax on rye from The Girl with the Dragon TattooKate Young muses on the joys of morning markets and makes a Swedish favourite from Stieg Larsson’s popular crime novel
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Interview with a Bookstore by Literary HubInterview with a Bookstore by Literary HubInterview with a Bookstore: Itinerant Literate, a bookstore on wheelsThe booksellers at Itinerant Literate operate from a trailer, currently parked in Charleston, South Carolina
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pictures, video & audio
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The art of memory with Abby Smith Rumsey and Simon BillWe explore memory and forgetting with a fictional artist who struggles with recall and a cultural historian examining the past to solve present troubles with data storage
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Tom Gauld on women in spy fictionAfter Natasha Walter discussed women leads in spy fiction, Tom adds his own creative comment on the inventive and adaptive genre
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Flora, fauna and fraud: cheats of the natural worldDeception is everywhere in nature, as plants and animals turn trickster in the hope of eating or avoiding being eaten. The evolutionary biologist Martin Stevens introduces some subtle strategies in the game of life
you may have missed
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007 questions: how well do you know the James Bond books?On this day 50 years ago, Ian Fleming’s 14th and final Bond book, Octopussy and the Living Daylights, was published. How much do you know about Ian Fleming in print?
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Why are there so many new publishing imprints?From Colm Tóibín’s Tuskar Rock to Fleet, One and Tinder, there seem to be more and more publisher subdivisions. Claire Armitstead finds out why
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Readers' favourite bookshopsTo kick off Independent Bookshop Week, here are some of our readers’ favourite indie book havens
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The only way I could really talk about his suicide was in a poemUS twins Matthew and Michael Dickman talk about the collection of poems they wrote in honour of their half-brother who killed himself
My life before writing Emma Cline on being a child actor
David Mitchell On dreams of being a lighthouse keeper
Nina Stibbe On her ambitions to work in a sawmill
Margo Jefferson On musical theatre