Books blog
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The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, her debut novel of desolate southern lives, made McCullers an instant star – something she never fully recovered from
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The Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation opens for submissions on 27 February. Award judge Margaret Jull Costa reflects on today’s need for translators
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Angela Carter died 25 years ago, but her legacy lives on – from Fifty Shades to Buffy, from Björk to The Hunger Games
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The 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
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Charging around £100 per visit to its pricey collection, it’s not clear if this is an actual library or just a novel spot for wealthy Russians to hold meetings
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The two authors have long written in step, and the His Dark Materials promised ‘equel’ will hopefully use similar tricks to Harry Potter’s author in extending Lyra’s story
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Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
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Superficially traditional, this 1923 sonnet on an artist and his model conceals some of the daring that made the author a groundbreaking modernist
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Readers responded emotionally to our story trailing some of the revelations in the new BBC docudrama. As it airs, this is an opportunity to discuss further
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Haley’s influential family saga about 18th century slavery is back on TV, but its literary reputation is still tarnished by questions of authenticity
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Luton council is to name two streets in tribute to the late Steve Dillon’s creations – joining a long line of literature that’s been put literally on the map
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The rumbustious story of winged circus performer Sophie Fevvers was extravagantly praised on publication and should give us much to talk about
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Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
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Even the literature that seems most rooted in one place is animated by writing from elsewhere – and trying to keep that influence out is profoundly dangerous
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These gritty space operas combine extravagant, high-tech invention with real human drama. Thirty years after they began appearing, here are some of the best
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A careful engagement with nature ‘in its fault and fold’ is also a watchful flight from human complication
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The BAME short story prize that reaches out to black, Asian and minority ethnic writers is now open for this year’s entries
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Northern Ireland borrowed the Guinness World Records, Wales and Scotland thrillers by Lee Child and Paula Hawkins, while Londoners crammed for their driving test
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The Stanford Dolman travel book of the year shortlistee reflects on the allure of the travel writer’s journey
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Sebastian Barry's second Costa win crowns a singular career
Justine JordanDays Without End sees the novelist venturing in to the 19th-century American west to find a tender story of ‘two wood-shavings of humanity in a rough world’
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With an output to match her prodigious imagination, there are a good few fine novels and story collections to choose from. It’s up to you to decide which one
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Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
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Written by a distinctly slithery character, this playful courtship poem is nonetheless an entertaining – and satisfyingly allusive – pastoral
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Quick Read author Dreda Say Mitchell on the new Reading Agency initiative that aims to change lives by promoting adult literacy
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Burns Night celebrates the wrong Scottish poet
Stuart KellyThe bard honoured on 25 January was a fine writer, but he also treated women appallingly. I can think of at least one other Scots author more worthy of a national festival
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Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
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An Irish poet looks back, past the snobbish abundance of his country’s recently upended boom years, to the appalling suffering of the Great Famine
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Facing the pressures of high office, Obama turned to Shakespeare and George W Bush read political biographies. What might help the Donald get through his term?
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From the dystopias of Cormac McCarthy and Margaret Atwood to a ‘biopunk’ thriller and a teen comedy – these are some of the best stories of ecological peril
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How many authors from the country can you name? I couldn’t think of many, so a new Penguin anthology of strangely familiar short stories is very welcome
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Our second book from this amazing author has a less obscure subject than The Blue Flower, but how its author wove its narrative magic is no easier to say
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Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
Reading group Nights at the Circus is feminist, but its 'psychedelic Dickens' is not a lecture