books
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Al-Nuwayri’s The Ultimate Ambition in the Arts of Erudition, to be published in translation by Penguin in October, has been compressed down from 33 volumes
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Joseph Heller creates a classic that is truly, deeply, killingly funny by breaking all the rules of comedy
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In Hollywood, a white actor finds herself falling in love with a black actor in this excerpt from Darrieussecq’s latest novel, one exploring cinema and female desire
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Author must continue a two-year sentence handed down for including a scene that ‘violated public modesty’ in his novel The Use of Life
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From James Bond to the Beatles to Bowie … but where’s Alice? This lucid and amusing survey of the British imagination features some intriguing omissions
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Emma Donoghue’s latest, a gothic chiller set in 19th-century Ireland, is, like its predecessor, at its best in confined spaces
news
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Opening will take place next month after £4.25m transformation of police station in poet’s Derry hometown Bellaghy
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Tempers flare, but readers continue to queue, as authors struggle to explain what is special about young adult fiction
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Wilde riffs on the Greek poet Theocritus’s depictions of lovers, using sounds to embody meaning with lasting appeal to the ear
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not the booker prize
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Our longlist of 147 contenders has now been narrowed to six novels, all of them from indie publishers
regulars
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100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time100 Best Nonfiction Books of All TimeThe 100 best nonfiction books: No 31 – The Great Tradition by FR Leavis (1948)The controversial critic’s statement on English literature is an entertaining, often shocking, dissection of the novel
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The first book interviewThe first book interviewRebecca Rideal: 'The time of the grand histories is coming to an end'The debut author explains how 1666, her account of an extraordinary year of plague, fire and war, seeks to tell a large story from the ground up
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Top 10sTop 10sTop 10 seaside novelsFrom Graham Greene to John Banville, many writers have been drawn to the dangerous transformations of stories told on the shore. Not exactly beach reading, these are some of the best
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PodcastPodcastCharlotte Brontë at 200: stories inspired by Jane Eyre – books podcastTracy Chevalier and Esther Freud read stories inspired by Brontë’s most famous line: ‘Reader, I married him’
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A survivor of the 2004 tsunami draws on her memory of the horrific day she lost her mother and sister
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This elegant book considers defiant female walkers from Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Woolf to the author, and celebrates the freedom of being on the move
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The author of The People v OJ Simpson examines another ‘trial of the century’, which hinged on whether Hearst was brainwashed or radicalised
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When Henry Molaison had his hippocampus removed, it left him with a profound memory deficit. Does Luke Dittrich, the surgeon’s grandson, have other secrets to reveal?
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Society Mythomania by Peter Conrad – the real meaning of Apple, cronuts and the Kardashians
Steven PooleA collection of playful essays, inspired by Roland Barthes, explores the deeper significance of today’s cultural phenomena -
It’s a chilling prospect, but the AI we’ve created could transform human nature, argues this spellbinding new book by the author of Sapiens
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An ill-advised drunken kiss is the catalyst for this compelling saga of a dysfunctional Californian stepfamily
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Personal and political crises lead an American Jew to question his identity in an imperfect but engaging novel
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Alice Hoffman gives us a fine fictionalised account of the struggles of Rachel, the impressionist’s mother, on the Caribbean island of St Thomas in the 1800s
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Rachel Cusk’s follow-up to Outline is filled with more brilliant, insightful prose
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Early stories from Terry Pratchett, plus space exploration, sleepy creatures and modern fairytales
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Nutshell by Ian McEwan An elegiac masterpiece
Kate ClanchyAn unborn child tells the story of how his mother and her lover plan to murder his father in this brutally effective update of Hamlet -
From nationalism to terror threats, Kelly’s home secretary hero faces tough questions about the future of Britain. But can the literary thriller keep pace with Westminster’s upheaval?
people
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The novelist on Victorian freak shows, taking flak about the Man Booker prize, and her obligation to the real people behind her stories
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The Irish author on life as an exile, writing good sex – and those James Joyce comparisons
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The Dutch novelist on finding fame in his 50s, dysfunctional characters and his dream dinner guests
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As her memoir is published, the New York writer looks back on 35 years of literary life and feuds in the Big Apple
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Join Mog author Judith Kerr, Charlie and Lola creator Lauren Child and other star authors and illustrators at the Unicorn theatre, London on 23 October for a day celebrating the choicest 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!
A selection of our favourite literary content from around the world
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The Little Library CaféThe Little Library CaféFood in books: blackberry jam from Goodnight Mister TomAfter a week of blackberry picking, Kate Young is inspired to make jam – using far more sugar than the characters in Michelle Magorian’s wartime classic
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Interview with a Bookstore by Literary HubInterview with a Bookstore by Literary HubInterview with a Bookstore: Big Blue Marble, celebrating Philadelphia's diverse neighbourhoodsTapping into Mt. Airy’s ‘shop local’ ethic, Big Blue Marble is a focal point for community activism and feminist, progressive debate (and they sell books, too)
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pictures, video & audio
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Tracy Chevalier and Esther Freud read stories inspired by Brontë’s most famous line: ‘Reader, I married him’
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Edna O’Brien headed an international, cross-genre bill that included speakers from Howard Jacobson to Alexei Sayle, Michael Morpurgo and Billy Bragg
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Tom Hiddleston reads from John Le Carré The Night Manager
you may have missed
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The author is about to publish his 17th novel – and it’s narrated by a foetus. He talks about class, controversy and why he was drawn to an ‘irresistibly silly’ idea
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Voynich manuscript The unbreakable encryption?
Scarlett ThomasA Spanish publisher has won the right to reproduce the manuscript, but are they any closer to discovering what it actually is? -
Fifty years after the first performance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard’s rise to fame remains one of the great fairy stories of literary success
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Written towards the end of Wilde’s incarceration, De Profundis is bitter, seductive, hurt and passionate. Ahead of a public reading, Colm Tóibín visits the cell in which Wilde put pen to paper
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Paperback writer The truth about the Hemingway Heist