books
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The poet AE Housman, author of ‘A Shropshire Lad’, is associated with a certain kind of English nostalgia, but the truth is more complicated, argues this fine and wide-ranging study
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In an unnamed city emptied out by plague, feuding gangsters deal in the dead: the second novel from the acclaimed Mexican author is a response to the violence of the drugs wars
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The author on writing from inside his Glasgow community, and why the furore around his 1994 Booker-winning novel still defines his career
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Novels from Colombia and Mexico explore how our lives are shaped by history
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We may be living through times of unprecedented change, but in uncertainty lies the power to influence the future. Now is not the time to despair, but to act
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Commissioned to produce 24 variant covers for the superhero series, Cho has pulled out after six, citing attempts to ‘censor’ work for ‘showing too much skin’
news
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The bumbling bear has seen off the boy wizard in a survey to find the UK’s favourite character from childhood reading
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Small publishing houses have been snapping up deals for a biography of the new PM, so when will the traditional political publishers join the race?
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As the Zika virus casts a shadow over the Rio Olympics, Rob Ewing explores the growing fascination with epidemics in literature and film
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summer reading
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From Essex serpents to chimpanzees, political satire to the best new thrillers … leading writers reveal which books they will be taking to the beach
regulars
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Top 10sTop 10sTop 10 books about the Iraq warRanging from forensic intelligence reports to biting reportage and searing fiction and memoir, these books lay bare the mistakes that drove the war, and reveal their human cost
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Reading groupReading groupReading group: JD Salinger's Franny and Zooey is July's bookIntriguingly presented by the great man as ‘part of a long-term project’ in a ‘narrative series’, there is much here to chew over – not least a most unusual blurb
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100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time100 Best Nonfiction Books of All TimeThe 100 best nonfiction books: No24 – The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith (1958)An optimistic bestseller in which JFK’s favoured economist promotes investment in both the public and private sectors
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PodcastPodcastExamining the past with Juan Gabriel Vásquez and Álvaro Enrigue – books podcastNovels from Colombia and Mexico explore how our lives are shaped by history
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Sport The Games: A Global History of the Olympics by David Goldblatt – a tale of ugly politics and propaganda
David RuncimanThe Olympics have always been more about money and political objectives than about sport. Ahead of Rio, this is a bracingly debunking account -
The novelist goes in search of his father, who was abducted by Colonel Gaddafi. Is he still alive, incarcerated in a notorious prison?
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Society The Staircase Girls by Catherine Seymour – Cambridge ‘bedders’ and the class divide
Lara FeigelBedders at Cambridge University are housekeepers that form part of revered Oxbridge traditions. But over the years what was their view of the privileged students? -
Morley has written a moving tribute to Bowie that is part love letter, part biography and part memoir, but also a book about how to live
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We have long known that stress can be energising. This engaging book, full of science and vivid stories, presents the case for ‘what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’
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The Voyeur’s Motel by Gay Talese A work of great moral queasiness
Sarah ChurchwellTalese is an eminent, though now controversial, journalist
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The Corporation Wars: Dissidence by Ken MacLeod, The Many Selves of Katherine North by Emma Geen, Ghosts of Karnak by George Mann, The Quarantined City by James Everington, Alice by Christina Henry, South by Frank Owen
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Everyday sadness meets otherworldly menace as an Irish priest recalls the strange events of one hot summer
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This fable exploring the arcane mythology of a cult living in a crumbling old house will lure you in – then cut to the kill
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Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien A deft novelisation of China’s 20th-century tragedy
Isabel HiltonHistory is deftly woven into a moving story of the musicians who suffered during and after the Cultural Revolution in China -
In Vyleta’s alternate-history 19th-century Britain, evil thoughts and wicked deeds are exuded from the body in a black cloud – an intriguing conceit that lingers in the imagination long after the novel is finished
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The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan A thoughtful novel on the aftershocks of terrorism
Hari KunzruFor the couple who lose their two sons, and the survivor who walks away from the blast, trauma moves in strange ways following a terrorist attack in Delhi -
The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss A portrait of parental anxiety
Penelope LivelyWith the NHS a central theme, this story about the effect of a child’s illness on her family is a novel for our times
people
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The first book interview: Fen’s author explains how short stories were the perfect form to ‘do really weird things and have really weird things happen’
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With a new book out and Inside Amy Schumer ruling the comedy world, the show’s head writer often seems as though she’s hate-watching her own experiences, then laughing at their cringeworthy absurdity
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Author who enthralled readers with bestselling novels such as Destiny and Rebecca’s Tale
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Sharon Dodua Otoo takes €25,000 Ingeborg Bachmann prize with Herr Gröttrup Sits Down, about the rocket scientist who worked for the Nazis, then the USSR
children's books
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We announce the eight wonderful authors and books that have been longlisted for our prize, this year judged by David Almond, SF Said and Kate Saunders
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Review one of the Guardian children’s fiction prize 2016 longlisted books as an individual or a school book group and be in with a chance of winning books, national book tokens and an invite to meet authors at our award ceremony – enter here!
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The 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
A selection of our favourite literary content from around the world
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The Little Library CaféThe Little Library CaféFood in books: raspberry cordial from Anne of Green GablesAfter a month of unsettling news, Kate Young turns to LM Montgomery’s children’s classic to find a sweet summer treat – and avoids the book’s boozy mixup
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Interview with a Bookstore by Literary HubInterview with a Bookstore by Literary HubInterview with a Bookstore: Dylans Mobile Bookstore in WalesTrundling between festivals in Wales, Dylans Mobile Bookstore is a haven for poets, musicians and customers on stilts. The booksellers talk about their favourite books and dealing with customers trying to trade books for hash
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pictures, video & audio
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Twenty years after it was first published, the novelist has revisited his much-loved novel about an alternate London beneath the real city, teaming up with Chris Riddell to produce an edition with drawings by the children’s laureate
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Over a lifetime of sleepless nights, Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr Seuss, created hundreds of artworks he called his ‘Midnight Paintings’. Although famous for his work as a children’s author, Geisel created topical and surrealist art, much of which was kept private until his death
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As clouds gather over public life, we turn to the books shining brightly this summer with Mark Lawson, Lisa McInerney and pack in a host of recommendations from Guardian writers
you may have missed
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The current wave of confessional writing from media-savvy young women walks an unsteady line between extending the politics of the personal and unit-shifting titillation
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A summary of the summary of The Report of the Iraq Inquiry, as suggested by John Crace
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The US writer, who alongside Tom Wolfe blazed a trail with the ‘new journalism’ of the 60s , has provoked controversy with his new book about a motel owner who spied on his guests. But is the story too good to be true?
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In the late 50s the Beat movement reached its high point, with Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs sharing rooms in a rundown hotel near the Seine. James Campbell visits a new exhibition at the Pompidou Centre and a pivotal moment in cultural history
popular
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New Spider-Woman comic cover condemned for 'blatant sexualisation'
This article is 1 year old
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'Inspiration in dark times': books to make sense of Brexit
Rebecca Solnit 'Hope is an embrace of the unknown'