Books

Books

In the five decades between 1910 and 1960, more than half a million people in England and Wales became Catholics. Among them were a clutch of literary stars: Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh, Muriel Spark and Graham Greene. But there was a whole host of poets, artists and public intellectuals less known to us today, whose going over to Rome provoked envy and dismay.

A Bouncy 123 by Sade Fadipe will be out in June Adanah and her friend Kolade go running around their village in this colourful picture book set in Nigeria, which captures all the fun of playing outdoors. Written by Sade Fadipe, a Nigerian primary schoolteacher and early reading expert who lives and teaches in the UK.

Loo Shu-hsin is born into privilege in 1924 her father is a banker in the largely British-run International Settlement of Shanghai but her life is marked by her mother's constant belittlement. Bad bad girl! You don't know how to talk, she's told, after speaking out of turn. With a tongue like yours, no one will ever marry you. Her only solace in the household is a nursemaid, Nai-ma, who vanishes

Proponents of artificial intelligence (AI), and especially individuals with a personal incentive to promote investments in the field, often talk about creating and selling AI products that clients can trust. In so doing, however, they reveal a deep misunderstanding of the nature of trust and what it takes to become trustworthy. To gain truly profound insight into trust, we should look not to Silicon Valley's marketing but to cultural resources that have stood the test of time.

Fantasy, mystery and psychological thriller series dominate the UK's bestsellers list for 2025, topped by Richard Osman's The Impossible Fortune. The fifth book in his Thursday Murder Club series secured the top position at 391,429 hardback sales. Adult colouring also had a resurgence this year: colouring books aimed at all ages made it into the top 20 chart, according to analysis by NielsenIQ BookData.

Who doesn't trea­sure a hand­made present? As the years go by, we may begin to offload the ill-fit­ting sweaters, the nev­er lit sand cast can­dles, and the Sty­ro­foam ball snow­men. But a present made of words takes up very lit­tle space, and it has the Ghost of Christ­mas Past's pow­er to instant­ly evoke the sender as they once were. Sev­en­ty years ago, poet Langston Hugh­es, too skint to go Christ­mas shop­ping, sent every­one on his gift list sim­ple, home­made hol­i­day post­cards.

Down on the canal on Christmas Day Down on the canal on Christmas Day a man walks towards me out of water-light, upright, Cratchit-wrapped, a smile to say: I know you. Hello Chris. Ghost in a time-ripped landscape where a low solstice sun spills whisked through a metallic staircase. With joy, the man's smile haunts me for miles a long blasted path, where a dead rat's belly festoons its purple crinoline Christmas hat.

While the Akira manga has been available in print for decades, a new Akira Hardcover Edition kicked off earlier in 2025, offering the most authentic presentation of Katsuhiro Otomo's groundbreaking sci-fi saga. If you've ever wanted to experience the full Akira saga, this is one of the best ways to do so--and as luck would have it, you can save a few dollars on these premium hardcover releases. Four volumes

Sixty years before a gaunt and deluded nobleman from La Mancha was overdosing on tales of derring-do, visiting his madness on those around him and single-handedly rewriting the rules of fiction the deeds of another heroic knight had already made literary history. Though completely eclipsed by Don Quixote, Cristalian de Espana, which was first published in 1545, has a unique claim to fame. Its 800 pages, bristling with swords, sorcerers, dragons and damsels, make up the earliest known work by a female Spanish novelist.

In 1941, during the German occupation of France, the then relatively unknown writers Jean Bruller and Pierre de Lescure came together to edit, publish and distribute a book called Le Silence de la mer (The Silence of the Sea). The story centred on two family members who refuse to speak to the officer occupying their house - their way of maintaining control of a tense dynamic and a rejoinder to the Nazi propaganda campaigns and newspaper censorship widespread in France at the time.

Every leader leaves their mark on the hearts and minds of a workforce. This can go one of two ways: leaders can leave behind a legacy of inspiration, or infuriation. Based on thousands of perspectives collected from around the globe, Adam created a systemic formula for choosing and earning the lasting impact you want to have on others. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Adam Galinsky, in the Next Big Idea app or view on Amazon.

I gave up on the inter­view and start­ed wor­ry­ing about my life when Hunter Thomp­son squirt­ed two cans of fire starter on the Christ­mas tree he was going to burn in his liv­ing-room fire­place, a few feet away from an unopened wood­en crate of 9‑mm bul­lets. That the tree was far too large to fit into the fire­place mat­tered not a whit to Hunter, who was sport­ing a dime-store wig at the time and resem­bled Tony Perkins in Psy­cho.

The Great Christmas Tree Race by Naomi Jones, illustrated by James Jones, Ladybird, 7.99 Star always goes on top of the Christmas tree until new decoration Sparkle kicks off a race. Who will win: Lights, Bauble, Snowflake or Reindeer? A festive picture-book caper with a child-pleasing twist. The Boy Who Grew Dragons: A Christmas Delivery by Andy Shepherd, illustrated by Sarah Warburton, Templar, 12.99 Tomas, Lolli and the dragons in Grandad's garden

Some spines are better turned inward. A pederast might hide away Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, in which a middle-aged German author ogles a lithe young Polish boy. A hyper-literate rapist should camouflage his copy of A Clockwork Orange with a more consensual dust jacket. It is therefore curious that the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein-who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking minors-flaunted his supposed love of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.

Whichbook employs human readers to classify books along dimensions like moods, levels of violence and sexual content, attributes of the main characters, and length. It's a process Van Riel says artificial intelligence can't yet replicate, though it's still quite mathematical in nature, with new hires guided in tuning their scores to the site's standard. Then, Whichbook users can indicate their own current preferences with a set of sliders to find a set of books that match.

"Awakening yourself to the whispers of rock", she says, "can transform the way you connect with and understand the world".

An entire library board in North Carolina has disbanded over a single trans book. The Randolph County Board of Commissioners dissolved its nine-member library board over a picture book about a trans boy, which initially caused backlash because it was located in the children's section. County spokesperson Amy Rudisill said the governing body for the county made the 3-2 decision earlier this week, hearing from about 40 people.