books
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With 500 new books out today, what should you read?New books from Mary Berry, Dan Brown and Dawn French are out, as part of the mass launch that marks the start of the Christmas season – and there’s another 250 on the way. Here are 10 titles in the running for No 1 -
Shockingly disloyal to his literary friend, claims SpurlingBiographer Hilary Spurling unmasks ‘vengeful’ posthumous reviews of Anthony Powell novels by onetime fan
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Fresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides – America’s mania for moneyFinancial anxiety, envy and greed unite the short stories in this excellent collection from the Pulitzer prize winner -
The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst – passion and folly, beautifully observedAn assured chronicle that moves from a charmer’s wartime years at Oxford to his son’s experiences in modern-day London
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The inevitable backlash against Instagram's favourite poetKaur’s verses on love, sex and race have made her the most revered – and reviled – of today’s ‘instapoets’. As a new collection The Sun and Her Flowers hits shelves, is the social media star a dark omen for poetry or a fresh voice in literature?
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Margaret Drabble shows the Golden age of student lifeJerusalem the Golden’s heroine Clara must balance the demands of family with the opportunities of education. But those dilemmas have grown tougher since 1967
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What Hemingway’s first short story tells usA newly discovered piece of fiction by the US author joins humbling examples of juvenilia by other great artists, from Jane Austen to Pablo Picasso
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Not the Booker prize
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Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout – a moving return to the midwestReturning to the small Illinois town of her previous book, the stories in this novel can feel a little overfamiliar, but they are beautifully told
regulars
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Book of the dayBook of the dayFresh Complaint by Jeffrey Eugenides review – America’s mania for moneyFinancial anxiety, envy and greed unite the short stories in this excellent collection from the Pulitzer prize winner
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PodcastPodcastOrhan Pamuk and Nicole Krauss - books podcastThe Turkish Nobel winner and American novelist talk about their new books, The Red-Haired Woman and Forest Dark
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Novel recipesNovel recipesNovel recipes: linguine alla cecca from Heartburn by Nora EphronWhile reading Ephron’s classic comic novel, Kate Young finds a simple pasta dish, so delicate ‘that it’s almost like eating salad’
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Reading groupReading groupA London flat and no job: Margaret Drabble shows the Golden age of student lifeJerusalem the Golden’s heroine Clara must balance the demands of family with the opportunities of education. But those dilemmas have grown tougher since 1967
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Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde – prophetic and necessaryThe black lesbian feminist writer and poet, who died 25 years ago, is better known than ever, her words often quoted in books and on social media
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The Earth Gazers by Christopher Potter – the missions to the moonA new telling of the story of the Apollo astronauts between 1968 and 1972 involves nervous breakdowns, a former Nazi and an atheist church
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The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie MorrisA book combining meticulous wordcraft with exquisite illustrations restores language describing the natural world to the children’s lexicon
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The Rub of Time by Martin Amis – a lit crit lion bares his clawsInsight vies with self-regard in this anthology of essays on everything from poker to porn
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Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary SpurlingThis affectionate life of Anthony Powell succeeds in restoring the reputation of the witty postwar novelist
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Universe: our starry night, seen from all anglesA new Phaidon photobook draws from the worlds of astronomy and art to create a complete, beautiful picture of how we see space and ourselves within it
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A Patient Fury by Sarah Ward – classic police proceduralA maverick cop who just won’t let a case go is catnip for crime lovers in the third DC Connie Childs book
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Mrs Osmond by John Banville – what Isabel Archer did nextJohn Banville’s masterly ‘sequel’ to Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady reveals what became of his soul-searching heroine
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Dunbar by Edward St Aubyn – had King Lear run a media empire …Can Shakespeare’s blackest tragedy be made to say something new? Unseated in a boardroom coup, sent to a care home, a media mogul loses everything in this reimagining of King Lear from a master prose stylist
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The Growing Season by Helen Sedgwick – if pregnancy were shared between the sexes …Women are released from the agonies and inconveniences of biology in this compelling what-if about the female body, technology and power
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Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan review – remarkable cinematic scopeThe author of A Visit from the Goon Squad returns with a more conventional historical novel following the lives of a family in Brooklyn during and after the Depression
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Worlds from the Word’s End by Joanna Walsh – existential gamesWitty short stories toy with notions of realism versus fantasy and autobiography versus fiction
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The Snow Angel by Lauren St JohnThis no-holds-barred tale of a Kenyan girl who finds refuge from poverty and disease is a hymn to the human spirit
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The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell – a Wish come trueWorlds collide when a young wizard meets a warrior princess in this action-packed adventure
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On a Magical Do-Nothing Day by Beatrice Alemagna – alive to the power of natureA ramble in the woods proves transformative in this award-winning celebratory tale
people
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The amazing story of Ocean Vuong, former refugee and prize-winning poetHis grandfather was a US soldier who fell in love with a Vietnamese farm girl. But then Saigon fell and the family was blown apart. Ocean Vuong poured it all into Night Sky With Exit Wounds, winning him a Forward prize – and comparisons with Emily Dickinson
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I want people to drop their fear of poetryThe publisher and philanthropist on turning to a Philip Larkin poem in a crisis, and the biggest decision you will ever make
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Keep the life normal, and keep the work weirdThe novelist and documentary maker on families and the purpose of fiction in a post-truth era
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I’m on the Man Booker shortlist and top of my fantasy football leagueThe debut novelist, Booker-shortlisted for Elmet, on the joys of daydreaming, stationery and electric guitars
pictures, video & audio
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Orhan Pamuk and Nicole KraussThe Turkish Nobel winner and American novelist talk about their new books, The Red-Haired Woman and Forest Dark
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Behind the scenes at Contains Strong Language – in picturesGuardian photographer Tom Jenkins visits festival where poems are being sold from vans, hung from washing lines and brought to life by burlesque dancers
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David Attenborough's first adventuresIn 1954, a young David Attenborough was offered the chance to travel the world collecting animals for London Zoo. Filming his travels for the BBC’s Zoo Quest, he went to Guyana, Indonesia and Paraguay, a journey immortalised in Adventures of a Young Naturalist
you may have missed
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The book I wish I’d written? My next oneThe Northern Lights author loves John le Carré and William Blake, Anthony Powell not so much
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First books, second thoughts: embarrassing debutsFrom Martin Amis on video games, to Neil Gaiman on pop music, a good number of celebrated writers wish to forget their initial appearances on the literary scene. But have you?
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Test-driving the online Jane Austen role-playing gameJane Austen’s works have been given the World of Warcraft treatment, but with dinner parties instead of dungeons – and gossip instead of guns. Our writer ties on her virtual bonnet and goes hunting for a suitor
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Princess Margaret’s misadventures in bohemiaPicasso wanted to marry her, Gore Vidal defended her, but most writers and artists she met were spiteful about her behind her back – and, explains Craig Brown, she didn’t really like them much either
Kazuo Ishiguro Nobel prize winner and a novelist for all times
Nobel prize in literature Kazuo Ishiguro wins
Kazuo Ishiguro How I wrote The Remains of the Day in four weeks