books
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BAME short story prize announces 'rich array of lives' in shortlistIn its second year, the award set up to address poor representation of black, Asian and minority authors reveals six fresh voices in fiction -
Is Your Country a He Or a She in Your Mouth by Patricia LockwoodA political poem that contests the damaging gendering of nations is also, in the hands of a ‘weird Twitter’ star, a deliciously transgressive romp
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What are you reading this week?Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them -
Domestic Manners of the Americans by Frances TrollopeRich in detail and Old World snobbery, Frances Trollope’s classic travelogue identifies aspects of America’s national character still visible today
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Inside the Wave by Helen Dunmore – a voyage around the imaginationThe writer’s latest collection takes in everything from mortality and ageing to the music of the sea
news
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Poet and author Helen Dunmore dies aged 64The Orange prize winning author of 12 novels and 10 poetry collections has died, not long after revealing her cancer diagnosis
hay festival 2017
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The week at Hay festivalMythical magic from Colm Tóibín, some illuminating medieval manuscripts and a game Neil Gaiman … this week in Hay-on-Wye
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Colm Tóibín urges authors to lose the flashbacksSpeaking at the Hay literary festival, the Irish novelist said modern writers should emulate Jane Austen and stop overdoing the backstory
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Christopher Hitchens, Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel – in conversationChristopher Hitchens on God, Margaret Atwood on The Handmaid’s Tale, Hilary Mantel on Wolf Hall … highlights from Hay’s most memorable interviews
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Soho loses notoriety as London's criminal gangs look eastClip joints and phone thefts are still common in the capital, says author of a book on city crime around the world
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This election is impoverishing language as well as the countryWhether it’s Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn, ‘deals’ or ‘hypothetical questions’, words and meanings are being mangled as polling day looms
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Paul Beatty webchatWinner of last year’s Man Booker prize for his blistering US satire, The Sellout, the novelist will be in to answer your questions on Tuesday 6 June at 1pm BST
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regulars
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Book of the dayBook of the dayIn Writing by Adam Phillips review – the psychoanalyst as unreliable narratorAdam Phillips’s diverse, probing essays on writers and writing are like ‘little gatherings of like minds’
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PodcastPodcastThe Dragon of Palma de Mallorca, read by Andrew Scott – Travel folktales for kids podcastThe Spanish island city is terrorised by a fearsome dragon. But is it really a dragon, or something else?
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The Little Library CaféThe Little Library CaféNovel recipes: Macaroons from The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von ArminEnjoying the abundance of a Tuscan holiday, I devoured Von Armin’s novel with some toothsome almond delights
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Reading groupReading groupHelp choose a Pulitzer prize winner for June's reading groupIn honour of the US award’s centenary, please speak up for one of the great American novels it has recognised. Your votes will decide which one we look at
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Theft By Finding: Diaries Volume One by David SedarisThis story of Sedaris’s journey from drug addict to brilliant absurdist is, though funny, full of tales his fans have heard before
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Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins by Garry KasparovThe grandmaster’s account of his 1997 battle with Deep Blue is both thrilling and thoughtful
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Pale Rider – painful lessons of the flu pandemicLaura Spinney’s absorbing study of the 1918 Spanish influenza, which killed almost 100 million people, should make us glad the NHS exists
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Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-LodgeWhite people avoid discussing race, and when discussions are had, they fail to meet the reality of black experience
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The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson – a powerful account of family griefThe murder of Nelson’s aunt and the trial of her killer inform this seeringly honest memoir that revisits the case and confronts its agonising effects
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The Good Bohemian: The Letters of Ida John – making the best of a menage a troisThe wife of the painter Augustus John adapted to his mistress moving in, as she was herself stultified by conventional domesticity
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Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallett – family fears in a walled-off worldAn Oxfordshire estate is the focus of this extraordinary study of social upheaval down the years
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Flights by Olga Tokarczuk – the ways of wanderersA wandering Slavic sect survives on the kindness of strangers in this playful Polish novel
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The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy – a bright mosaicA scattershot narrative makes this long-awaited second novel unwieldy, if ultimately rewarding
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Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney – young, gifted and self-destructiveA menage a quatre in post-crash Dublin tests the bonds between close friends
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An English Guide to Birdwatching by Nicholas Royle – a metafictional fever dreamThis comic story about plagiarism featuring real-life authors is daring but too muddled to take flight
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Phone by Will Self – a triumph of joined-up thinkingSelf’s modernist trilogy concludes with typical panache and wit
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How Lyra’s story began – exclusive extract from Philip Pullman's new novel
Before His Dark Materials How Lyra’s story began – exclusive extract from Philip Pullman's new novel
In an extract from his forthcoming novel, The Book of Dust, Philip Pullman returns to the magical world of Northern Lights -
Tilly and the Time Machine by Adrian Edmondson – journey of discoveryThe actor’s tale about a seven-year-old chasing her dad through history is engaging and insightful
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The best new picture books and novelsFashion faux pas, silent ninja farting and doggy derring-do are just some of the ingredients in this bumper crop of children’s books
people
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Racism is structural: its purpose is to consolidate powerThe London-based author on her racial awakening – and the books that made her an activist and writer
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Plastics are poisoning us. We need change, nowIn a new series marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the novelist calls for a revolt against petrochemical polymers
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We go through checkpoints and soldiers; then we readThe founder of the Palestinian Festival of Literature reflects on 10 years of bringing art and culture to the troubled region
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I told Tom Hiddleston that the new James Bond should be a middle-aged cartoonistThe illustrator-author on life as the children’s laureate, meeting Lauren Laverne and David Walliams and why having a wonderful working life is a nightmare
pictures, video & audio
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Hay festival 2017: Cory Doctorow, Helen Fielding and Shashi TharoorWe gaze uneasily to the future with Doctorow, look back on the history of the British Raj with Tharoor, and some comic relief comes from Fielding’s hapless heroine Bridget Jones
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Islands and literature, from Iceland to JamaicaAs the Brexit boat prepares to set sail, writers from islands around the world explain what it means to be from a small place surrounded by sea
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Funny memoirs with Patricia LockwoodWe talk to the poet-turned-memoirist about Priestdaddy, her account of growing up with a Catholic priest for a father, and discuss our favourite funny autobiographies
you may have missed
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Why I became a historical novelist‘Is this story true?’ readers invevitably ask. In the first of her BBC Reith Lectures, the double Man Booker prize-winning author explores the complicated relationship between history, fact and fiction
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There are things nobody wants to hear. But the disturbing things are greatThe books interview: the dry-witted US essayist on how he went from working as an elf in Macy’s to becoming ‘the American Alan Bennett’
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Books about Weimar and Nazi BerlinFrom Hans Fallada to Vladimir Nabokov, a novelist recommends fiction from a city in its darkest years
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The Icelandic publisher that only prints books during a full moon – then burns themTunglið is a tiny imprint that defies conventional business models, incinerating work that doesn’t sell immediately. Its creators explain their ‘poetic act’
Helen Dunmore obituary As a novelist, courage was her defining quality
News Dunmore dies aged 64, months after revealing cancer diagnosis
In her own words 'Facing mortality and what we leave behind'