books
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My Sister’s Bones by Nuala Ellwood - dark and punchyA war reporter heads home to Herne Bay, but is haunted by Aleppo and childhood abuse -
The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution by Robert ServiceThe prolific historian’s account of the doomed Romanovs is rich in drama
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I would like to give living for ever a tryThe American journalist on ageing, coming to terms with Parkinson’s disease and why baby boomers should be taxed -
Theresa May by Rosa Prince – a sphinx without a riddleA biography of the prime minister reveals a politician of steely self-control with a taste for vengeance
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The church has become a spent forceThe author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas on the explosion in YA fiction, the abandonment of the Catholic church and why he couldn’t live anywhere other than Dublin
news
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The Book of Dust: after 17 years, Pullman's latest work has new relevanceAs Philip Pullman announces his ‘equel’ to His Dark Materials, writers pay tribute to his exquisite storytelling and ‘daring heresy’
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How the Brexit vote revealed Britain's divided cultureHow did our culture became so polarised – and what can Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy, written 60 years ago, teach us about how we live today?
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How The Buddha of Suburbia let me in to a much wider worldI recognised Hanif Kureishi’s depiction of a young man’s uncertain cultural identity immediately, and it began to show me how to be at home everywhere
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books in 2017
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Books to watch in 2017Jane Austen’s bicentenary, Arundhati Roy’s first novel in 20 years, and unpublished F Scott Fitzgerald ... the literary year ahead
regulars
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PodcastPodcastReclaiming history with Yaa Gyasi and Chibundu Onuzo - books podcastThe authors of two buzzy new novels, Homegoing and Welcome to Lagos, explore ancient and modern stories of west Africa
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Reading groupReading groupOverwhelming, yet gorgeous writing: Angela Carter's excessive brillianceNights at the Circus is rich with ingenious verbal invention, extravagant plot devices and eye-popping description. Perhaps a little too rich?
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The first book interviewThe first book interviewAlice Broadway: 'I guess it's inevitable that I became a bit death-obsessed'Ink’s heroine loses faith in a culture where people’s histories are etched on their skin – reflecting its author’s own disaffection from evangelical Christianity
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Book of the dayBook of the dayTime Travel: A History by James Gleick review – from mechanical to mentalThis roving study of our fascination with time travel covers well trodden ground but finds the concept constantly evolving
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The World of Mr Casaubon by Colin Kidd – in defence of George Eliot’s pedantCasaubon’s unfinished Key to All Mythologies was not, by the lights of his time, out of touch or deluded
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The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker: The Story of Britain Through Its CensusRoger Hutchinson’s breezily anecdotal book reveals the history and controversy behind the UK census
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Now We Are 40 by Tiffanie Darke – a generation lost to hedonism and irony?A journalist’s memoir that is also an argument about politics, sex and how society has gone wrong fails to convince
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Theresa May by Rosa Prince – the anti-Cameron, Brexit PMThere is not much that’s intriguing about the determined May, apart from her class-based reaction against her predecessor’s gilded clique
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Habermas by Stefan Müller-Doohm – from Hitler Youth to famed philosopherThe Holocaust, religion and the EU’s future are all central issues in the biography of a celebrated, combative thinker
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The Last of the Tsars by Robert Service – dispelling the mythsThe historian and biographer has written an unsentimental, surprising account of Nicholas II from his abdication in March 1917 to his execution
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The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson – suspense in 60s SuffolkPatricia Highsmith is involved with a married woman in this fascinating fictional biography of the late writer
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A Herring Famine by Adam O’Riordan – poems of craft and guileA promising poet’s second collection delivers work full of subtle music that wears its heart on its sleeve
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The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne – sin and torment in Catholic IrelandA picaresque odyssey tracks changing attitudes towards sexual freedoms over the last 70 years and rages against the church
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This Is Memorial Device by David Keenan – explosive post-punk novelA portrait of a fictional Airdrie rock group morphs into a haunting, hallucinatory vision of the early 80s
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The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville – a dazzling scholarly fantasyThe Nazis control Paris in 1950 and the art world’s surrealist visions have come to life in this dreamlike vision of an alternative history
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History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund – God and groomingA teenager struggles to come of age in a world of religious zealots and predatory teachers in this stark debut
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We Come Apart – a bittersweet teenage romance in verseA shoplifter falls for a Romanian immigrant in a beautiful collaboration from Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan
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Dick Bruna, 1927-2017Creator of Miffy, the little rabbit who became a star of children’s literature
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His Dark Materials is two decades old, but its lessons are made for todayThe Book of Dust will soon expand Philip Pullman’s landmark fantasy trilogy, but the first books can still teach us a lot about how we live now
people
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I fear the sack every day from the best job I’ve ever hadThe author on walking London’s streets, siestas and the daily creative struggle
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I always wanted to be an art monsterThe author recalls her youthful dreams of a Turner prize victory and the run-in with doctors that led to her second novel
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How James Salter set the standard for erotic writingFollowing a young couple in 1960s France, A Sport and a Pastime asks how we make sense of romance and tells the truth about sexual love
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Prison made me believe in literature moreThe Egyptian novelist, who was jailed last year for ‘violating public morality’ with his novel The Use of Life, looks back at an experience he hopes is now over
A selection of our favourite literary content from around the world
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The Little Library CaféThe Little Library CaféFood in books: breakfast rolls from The School at the ChaletKate Young seeks some escapist fiction and bakes a breakfast enjoyed by the children in the Austrian boarding school in Brent-Dyer’s novel
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Interview with a Bookstore by Literary HubInterview with a Bookstore by Literary HubInterview with a Bookstore: Blue Willow Bookshop in HoustonCelebrating 20 years since owner Valerie took over, Blue Willow Bookshop is equally split between adults and children’s books, and staffed with knowledgable booksellers who can do anything - including fixing vacuum cleaners
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pictures, video & audio
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Michael Chabon on The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and ClayThe Pulitzer prize-winning novelist looks back on a modern classic at a Guardian book club event
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Sebastian Barry on his Costa-winning novel Days Without EndIn the week Sebastian Barry picked up his second Costa book of the year award, he joins us in the studio to read from and discuss Days Without End
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Illustrating Jane Austen's Mansfield ParkHere are the 23 competition finalists in the running to illustrate The Folio Society’s new edition of the classic story of Fanny Price
you may have missed
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SS-GB and the what-if novels that alter historyAs Nazis occupy our TV screens in the adaptation of Len Deighton’s novel, DJ Taylor explores the alternative world of counter-factual novels
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We must take back our stories and reverse the gazeWriters of African heritage must resist the attempts of others to define us and our history
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Terry Pratchett docudrama is a fittingly imaginative tribute to Discworld's geniusBack in Black’s inventive life story eschews the usual talking heads to focus on the author’s devoted fans – of whom I am one
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For my family, a book was a kind of assaultThe French literary sensation and debut author of The End of Eddy on growing up without books
Carson McCullers at 100: a century of American suffering