books
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Estate endorses To Kill a Mockingbird graphic novelThe new comic is the latest in a number of posthumous projects based on the work of a writer who was famously shy of publicity -
Your questions answered on The Sellout, satire, Richard Pryor and Fran RossWinner of last year’s Man Booker prize for his blistering US satire, The Sellout, the novelist answered questions on Lee Morgan, enjoyable authors, Eric Clapton and beans on a fry up
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Investigating children's gun deaths in the USIn a single day in 2013, 10 American children died from gunshot wounds. I wanted to find out why this was nothing out of the ordinary -
Richard Ford discusses his family memoirThe Pulitzer prize-winning author talks to Sarah Churchwell about his new memoir, Between Them: Remembering my Parents
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John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces is June's bookYour choice of Pulitzer winner only received the honour for his masterpiece posthumously, having been unable to find a publisher while he lived
news
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Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert and Rayya Elias celebrate love in private ceremony‘We belong to each other,’ writer says of relationship with terminally ill best friend of more than 15 years
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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Confessions of a passionate remainerDoubtful we will get the scrutinising parliament we urgently need this week, the novelist believes a youthful pro-European movement is mustering, ready to fight back
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regulars
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Book of the dayBook of the dayLetters to a Young Writer review – sound advice for novelistsDespite the occasional misstep, Colum McCann’s book of guidance for writers is full of clarity, wit and forceful instruction
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PodcastPodcastRichard Ford discusses his family memoir – books podcastThe Pulitzer prize-winning author talks to Sarah Churchwell about his new memoir, Between Them: Remembering my Parents
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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 groupJohn Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces is June's reading group bookYour choice of Pulitzer winner only received the honour for his masterpiece posthumously, having been unable to find a publisher while he lived
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Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong by Angela SainiA welcome new study suggests that science is rewriting the old theories that ‘explain’ why women are best suited to housework and men are natural philanderers
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In Writing by Adam Phillips – 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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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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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
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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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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
from the archive
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Facing mortality and what we leave behindThe novelist, who died on 5 June after a short battle with cancer, considers the question of legacy and how a wander through a graveyard inspired her latest novel Birdcage Walk
people
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Creator of characters best described as fallen angelsAward-winning American novelist, poet and screenwriter who wrote about fallen angels living in a fallen world
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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
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 Family reveals poem written in the author's last days
Helen Dunmore obituary As a novelist, courage was her defining quality
News Dunmore dies aged 64, months after revealing cancer diagnosis