books
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I never wrote for money or fameHis 1971 novel was a countercultural sensation, selling 2m copies. But the author has surrounded himself in mystery. Why? -
I have never written anything from beginning to endThe Pulitzer prize-winning novelist on writing by hand, thinking aloud and forming a work out of scenes
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What writers really do when they writeA series of instincts, thousands of tiny adjustments, hundreds of drafts … What is the mysterious process writers go through to get an idea on to the page? -
Idaho by Emily Ruskovich – the scent of a murderBeginning with an unthinkable act of family violence, this moving and profound debut investigates the limits of memory and imagination
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Football doesn’t fit neatly inside the label of literary fictionThe books interview: the prize-winning author of God’s Own Country on outsiders, Bradford City and A Natural, his new book about a young gay footballer struggling to fit in
news
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Turkish Delight: can the sexually explicit Dutch classic still shock?On the school syllabus in the Netherlands, Jan Wolkers’ novel – that will offend some – reads wonderfully, but leaves uneasy questions about its treatment of women
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Have we got Machiavelli all wrong?What if the Italian civil servant whose name became shorthand for devious politics was trying to warn us about the despots, not advise them?
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Should writers boycott book festivals in countries where rights are under threat?Luxurious offers from international events are tempting – but as authors and campaigners explain, they come with heavy ethical baggage
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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Books to watch in 2017Jane Austen’s bicentenary, Arundhati Roy’s first novel in 20 years, and unpublished F Scott Fitzgerald ...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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PodcastPodcastFact or fiction: autobiographical novels with Édouard Louis – books podcastLouis’s acclaimed debut The End of Eddy sparked a media hunt for the truth in France due to its blend of narrative and autobiographical fact. We speak to him about his novel’s reception, plus discuss the best and worst of autofiction
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Reading groupReading groupReading group: which Anthony Burgess book shall we read to mark his centenary?The obvious choice may be A Clockwork Orange, but we have plenty of poetry and non-fiction to pick from his 40-year career
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The first book interviewThe first book interview2018, a space odyssey: Jaroslav Kalfař's strange debut is out of this worldSpaceman of Bohemia sees a misfit astrophyicist fired into space with only a 34-eyed spider for company. But that doesn’t make it speculative fiction, the author explains
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Book of the dayBook of the dayLincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders review – agile tale of loss and resistanceA grieving Abraham Lincoln paces the spaces between life and death in this astonishingly agile tale of loss and resistance
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Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality by Fredric JamesonChandler painted American life in grimy detail, with gumshoe as design critic, and anticipated the consumerist reality of the coming decades
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Fathers by Sam MillerA son’s affectionate, grateful book recalls the father he knew – and the footloose, polyamorous one he didn’t
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Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson – the future is funThis technophile’s optimism for the future appears well founded if the past is any guide
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Time Travel: A History by James Gleick – why haven’t we realised the dream?A survey that takes in HG Wells, Einstein and Doctor Who claims science is too heavily influenced by fiction
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The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell BerryThese prescient essays are drawn from a 50-year campaign on behalf of old-style US agrarianism
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Cold War Freud and Freud: An Intellectual Biography – two excellent new takesA pair of rich, illuminating studies epitomise a new wave of thinking about the father of psychoanalysis
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The best recent thrillersThe Legacy by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Agents of the State by Mike Nicol, The Chalk Pit by Elly Griffiths, Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner, Written in Bones by James Oswald, Born Bad by Marnie Riches, The Pledge by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
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New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson – an urgent vision of the futureEnvironmental catastrophe has hit New York while the world’s richest continue to get richer in this towering novel
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Darke by Rick Gekoski – ‘passing the dying days’This late-life debut charts the passions of a curmudgeonly bibliophile as he reconnects with his football fan grandson
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Exit West by Mohsin Hamid – magic and violence in migrants’ taleA couple flee their war-torn city for Europe in a parable of love, displacement and the search for belonging
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The Long Drop by Denise Mina – meet Scotland’s worst serial killerThis true crime story about Peter Manuel, ‘the Beast of Birkenshaw’, alternates between a bizarre pub crawl with a relative of the victims and his trial for murder in 1958
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Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller – in at the deep endThe follow-up to Fuller’s celebrated debut novel dives skilfully into delicate family dynamics and mysterious disappearances
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Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Almost Entirely Unplanned Adventure by AL KennedyIn her first book for children, AL Kennedy conjures up a vividly imagined world with delightful prose
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The best new picture books and novelsProtesting chickens, a mischievous bear, hunt the ballerinas and a Swedish horror story
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Small acts of resistance: how to choose a children's book in a divided world?When we read to a child we are also reading to ourselves – and, in our increasingly polarised society, small choices make a big difference
people
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The woman at war with lifestyle feminismBefore her Australian tour the Why I Am Not a Feminist author hits out at romance, self-care and women who claim to be radical without doing the work
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Jaroslav Kalfař's strange debut is out of this worldSpaceman of Bohemia sees a misfit astrophyicist fired into space with only a 34-eyed spider for company. But that doesn’t make it speculative fiction, the author explains
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I'm still fascinated about the early days of white settlement in AustraliaThe author discusses her exposé of the fragrance industry, and why the stage adaptation of The Secret River makes her cry every time
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Why his poetry has never been more relevantLowell’s confessional work of the 1960s marked a sea change in American letters – then he fell out of favour. But on the eve of his centenary, his work offers an urgent political message in a time of Trump
A selection of our favourite literary content from around the world
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The Little Library CaféThe Little Library CaféFood in books: pig cheeks from Fingersmith by Sarah WatersUnctuous and tender, pig cheeks are less popular now as a cut than past times. Kate Young brings them back in style, to celebrate a meal from Sarah Waters’s Victorian 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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Your photos and storiesThe galaxy’s greatest comic celebrated its 40th birthday on earth last Sunday. To celebrate, our readers share their 2000AD memories, photos and memorabilia
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Fact or fiction: autobiographical novels with Édouard LouisLouis’s acclaimed debut The End of Eddy sparked a media hunt for the truth in France due to its blend of narrative and autobiographical fact. We speak to him about his novel’s reception, plus discuss the best and worst of autofiction
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Reclaiming history with Yaa Gyasi and Chibundu OnuzoThe authors of two buzzy new novels, Homegoing and Welcome to Lagos, explore ancient and modern stories of west Africa
you may have missed
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Looking back on the future of comic booksThe publisher of Judge Dredd and Halo Jones has had its own adventures over four decades, as founder Pat Mills and fans Jonathan Ross and Graham Linehan recall
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We could cut the working week by a thirdCould this young Dutchman, hailed as a visionary, galvanise the left with his radical plan for a borderless future in which we are all paid for working less?
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The dangers of nostalgia: we need to imagine a brighter futureMake America great again. Take back control... From politics to culture, we have been gripped by a wave of nostalgia. Mohsin Hamid calls on storytellers to look ahead with hope
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I used to say that I was not an autobiographical writer – that was a lieThe Chinese-American author discusses her breakdown and facing up to the trauma of her past
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Can people please stop telling me feminism is hot?