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fromwww.theguardian.com
1 day ago

Alan Slingsby obituary

Alan Slingsby was a journalist-philanthropist admired for putting his media skills at the service of the community, producing publications for trade unions and local groups.
Media industry
Writing
fromwww.theguardian.com
5 days ago

British novelist Gwendoline Riley wins a $175k Windham-Campbell prize

Gwendoline Riley and seven other writers receive $175,000 each from the Windham-Campbell prizes for their contributions to literature.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 week ago

Does anyone think Matt Goodwin's book on Britain's demise is a publishing sensation? I mean, other than him | Marina Hyde

Liz Truss's book quickly sold out but fell to No 223 in sales, while Matt Goodwin's book faced controversy over AI assistance and publicity tactics.
SF LGBT
fromLGBTQ Nation
1 week ago

John Lithgow claims JK Rowling's anti-trans activism as been "twisted & misrepresented" - LGBTQ Nation

John Lithgow defends his decision to play Dumbledore despite disagreeing with JK Rowling's views on trans identity.
NYC LGBT
fromThe New Yorker
2 weeks ago

John Lithgow on the Controversial Authors Roald Dahl and J. K. Rowling

The play 'Giant' dramatizes Roald Dahl's antisemitic statements and their relevance today amid rising antisemitism.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 week ago

What we're reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in March

Contemporary fiction offers diverse themes, from friendship and business to the complexities of gay life and the struggles of digital nomads.
Writing
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks ago

Enough Said by Alan Bennett review a man for all seasons

Repetition in Alan Bennett's diaries reveals layered meanings, especially regarding his reflections on the pandemic and personal experiences.
Books
fromAnOther
2 weeks ago

Polly Barton's Debut Novel Is an All-Consuming Exploration of Obsession

The protagonist navigates intense limerence while exploring self-actualization and cultural themes in Polly Barton's debut novel.
Books
fromTime Out London
2 weeks ago

The best independent bookshop in London has been crowned for 2026

Backstory in Balham has been named London's best independent bookshop at the British Book Awards for 2026.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
2 weeks ago

Today's Atlantic Trivia: Charles Dickens

The nighttime disorder formerly known as 'Pickwickian syndrome' is now called sleep apnea.
fromLondon On The Inside
1 month ago

One of London's Most Unusual Bookshops | Neighbourhood Watch

Running out of a tiny kiosk in Clerkenwell, Exmouth Cultural Kiosk is a secondhand bookstore and self-publishing project that sells books for as little as £2. The selection rotates often and can include everything from Tennyson to its own guide to Clerkenwell pubs.
London food
Writing
fromHarvard Gazette
4 weeks ago

The art of College poetry - Harvard Gazette

Harvard College hosts three National Youth Poet Laureates who emphasize performance techniques, personal storytelling, and the transformative power of poetry in their academic and artistic pursuits.
Public health
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Martyn Butler obituary

Martyn Butler co-founded the Terrence Higgins Trust in 1982, Europe's first organization responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis, inspired by his friend Terry Higgins's death.
fromwww.theguardian.com
4 weeks ago

Howl by Howard Jacobson review a tragicomic portrait of a Jewish man's despair

Howard Jacobson writes characters at their wits' end; those characters are usually men, and those men are usually Jewish. Additionally, and problematically for both them and everyone around them, their collective wits are capacious: easily enlarged to allow idiosyncrasy to bloom into neurosis, preoccupation into obsession.
Writing
Books
fromwww.npr.org
1 month ago

Author Luke Kennard talks about his novel, 'Black Bag'

Luke Kennard's novel 'Black Bag' fictionalizes a 1967 psychology experiment where a silent, bagged actor in a classroom gradually becomes liked by students through repeated exposure, exploring how familiarity transforms perception.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
3 weeks ago

The Delusions by Jenni Fagan review an afterlife of queues and bureaucracy

The Delusions depicts a chaotic afterlife processing center where humanity's false perceptions are exposed and sorted, while the system collapses under overwhelming numbers and mysterious cosmic dysfunction.
Writing
fromElite Traveler
1 month ago

Life Lessons With Author David Coggins

Living an interesting life requires embracing improbable efforts, starting from the ground floor in unfamiliar pursuits, prioritizing face-to-face conversation, and developing deep attachment to specific places.
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

Salman Rushdie Doesn't Want to Be Your 'Free Speech Barbie'

When you've written 23 books, it's a little frustrating to be known not even for a book, but for something that happened to a book in 1989—when that was my fifth published book and this is my 23rd. Can we please talk about books? I keep trying to say.
Books
#mortality
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

UK Society of Authors launches logo to identify books written by humans not AI

The SoA said the absence of any government measure to compel tech companies to label AI-generated output meant readers were struggling to distinguish between books written by a human, and machine-generated work based on AI models trained on copyrighted work without permission or payment.
Books
Writing
fromBusiness Matters
1 month ago

Mara Naaman: A Literary Voice Shaping Culture

Building a life around ideas means prioritizing process and learning over outcomes and external validation, enabling deeper intellectual and creative growth.
fromThe Nation
2 months ago

Barbara Pym's Archaic England

Thatcher rose to power on the back of a campaign to Make Britain Great Again-a promise to reverse the previous two decades of austerity, imperial contraction, and stagnating modernization. By 1979, the country was undeniably in decline-not just materially but on a more ineffable level, too. Divested of the unifying effect of global superpower status, the increasingly dis-United Kingdom's common identity was now an open, and anxious, question.
UK politics
Film
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

The Education of Jane Cumming review sexuality, race and a real school scandal

A candid, vividly acted film retells a 19th-century Scottish libel case and frankly portrays sexuality, exposing earlier adaptations' sanitizing of queer themes.
Miscellaneous
fromTime Out London
2 months ago

Beloved Covent Garden bookshop Magma is closing for good this week

Magma book and art shop in Covent Garden closes after 26 years because landlord rent demands and market pressures; King's Cross kiosk remains open.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Lord of the Flies review Jack Thorne's take on the classic is nowhere near the original's power

What, you wonder, could possibly have prompted the powers that be to commission an adaptation of a postwar allegory that throws into dreadful relief the impulse to tyranny, the fragility of democracy and the brittleness of our veneer of civilisation in this shining year of 2026? We may never know. Did I mention it takes place on an island in which all normal social rules no longer apply and the inhabitants are protected from any punishment or consequence, no matter what appetites emerge?
Television
#neil-gaiman
Books
fromHarvard Gazette
1 month ago

That's a book? - Harvard Gazette

Italo Calvino used tarot card decks as a computational system to generate interconnected narratives, predating modern AI by decades and demonstrating how structured systems can create complex literary works.
Arts
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Nero book awards: Benjamin Wood and Sarah Perry among prize winners

Benjamin Wood's Seascraper won the Nero fiction prize; Claire Lynch, Sarah Perry and Jamila Gavin won other category prizes; winners now compete for the Nero Gold.
Film
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

My cultural awakening: Thirteen influenced my hedonistic youth, until a psychotic episode ended it'

A 13-year-old experienced a sudden shift into self-destructive rebellious behavior influenced by peers and the film Thirteen, seeking acceptance and identity.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

The best recent poetry review roundup

Andrew Motion's latest collection explores mortality and loss through elegies, showing a shift toward rootedness and acceptance of death as a universal human experience rather than personal bewilderment.
Arts
fromHarvard Gazette
2 months ago

Updike's life in letters - Harvard Gazette

John Updike produced vast correspondence and literary works—over 25,000 letters, 60-plus books, and thousands of shorter pieces—making letters integral to his prolific output.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

The Quantity Theory of Morality by Will Self review raucously inventive state-of-the-nation satire

Will Self's new novel The Quantity Theory of Morality extends his 1991 debut theory by proposing that moral resources are finite and their depletion inevitably triggers widespread bad behavior across all social groups.
fromThe Art Newspaper - International art news and events
2 months ago

A brush with... curator James Lingwood

One of Vija Celmins's wonderful Night Sky works. Maybe one of her charcoal drawings of the cosmos, with a comet flaring across the surface. She conjures up such immensity, and such intimacy, with countless tiny points of light shining out of the darkness. Which cultural experience changed the way you see the world? In a word, Paris. After I left school, I spent several weeks working in Paris and discovered the pleasures of looking, on my own, for myself.
Arts
fromThe New Yorker
1 month ago

Daniyal Mueenuddin Reads Peter Taylor

Daniyal Mueenuddin joins Deborah Treisman to discuss 'Two Pilgrims,' by Peter Taylor, which was published in The New Yorker in 1963.
Books
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Ben Markovits: I used to think any book concerned with people falling in love can't be very good'

Reading shaped formative years through detective stories, fantasy epics, and memoirs that provided companionship and escape during frequent moves and family transitions.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

What we're reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in February

Claire Baglin's 'On the Clock' uses narrow focus on fast-food work to reveal profound truths about contemporary alienation and precarity with compassion and emotional depth.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

The Rigor and Love of a Great Editor

Ann Godoff exemplified editorial excellence through complete self-effacement, prioritizing authors' success over personal recognition while building Penguin Press into a prestigious publishing powerhouse.
Books
fromwww.dailyfreeman.com
1 month ago

Penguin Press founder Ann Godoff, a powerhouse editor of bestsellers and prize winners, dies at 76

Ann Godoff, influential book publisher for over 30 years who founded Penguin Press and published numerous bestsellers and award-winning works, died of cancer at age 76.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

These books are pushing boundaries': winners of 30,000 Inclusive Books for Children awards announced

Six female authors won the 2026 Inclusive Books for Children awards, with winning titles featuring diverse representation in children's literature across multiple age categories.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Sex, death and parrots: Julian Barnes's best fiction ranked!

Duffy, The Porcupine and The Lemon Table deliver a bisexual private-eye crime caper, a savage satire of a collapsed communist regime, and stories about ageing.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Rebel English Academy by Mohammed Hanif review a sure-fire Booker contender

Dark, irony-soaked comedy and farce expose Pakistan's political repression, religious hypocrisy, and violence with subversive, satirical imagination.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Underground wit and poor attention spans | Letters

Poems on the Underground seldom capture the London Underground experience, inspiring satirical commuter poems and comparisons between oral epic attention strategies and modern cinema.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

The best recent poetry review roundup

Best known as a memoirist, Morrison returns to poetry after 11 years with a masterclass of lyric distillation and charged observation, demonstrating that nothing is beneath poetic deliberation. His subjects range from social and political justice to meditations on poetic heroes such as Elizabeth Bishop and sonnet sequences elegising the writer's sister. The interwoven specificity and occasional nature of the poems is captivating:
Books
#julian-barnes
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

There is a sense of things careening towards a head': TS Eliot prize winner Karen Solie

Karen Solie's work confronts ecological and social harms directly, refusing to aestheticize suffering while insisting art must keep attention and counteract distraction.
Books
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

Tessa Hadley on the Power of Memory

A lasting friendship rests on shared sensibility, mutual trust to perceive and understand, and an affinity of insight beyond mere shared experiences.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

I could never hope to equal it again': Jeffrey Archer announces next novel will be his last

When I came across the idea for this novel a few years ago, I knew it was bigger in scope than anything I'd done before and I accepted that the research alone would be more demanding than anything I'd tackled in the past. When I finally sat down to write Adam and Eve I also realised, by the end of the first draft, that this was going to be my final novel,
Books
Books
fromEsquire
2 months ago

George Saunders Wants a Good Death

George Saunders' novel Vigil centers on mortality and a CEO's final night, and contemplating death energizes him rather than obsesses him.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

As If by Isabel Waidner review surreal doppelganger story

As the trophy takes the form of an elusive UFO, Corey Fah an outsider unfamiliar with the baffling inner workings of the system is unable to collect or even confirm the award. Waidner has said that the novel was partly inspired by the experience of winning the Goldsmiths prize for their previous work Sterling Karat Gold, and by the ephemeral nature of success, with its unfamiliar contexts of social power and opportunity.
Books
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Another World by Melvyn Bragg review portrait of the broadcaster as a young man

Melvyn Bragg leaves Wigton for Wadham College, embraces Oxford life, explores culture and politics, joins demonstrations, and later reassesses his imperial-minded motives.
fromwww.bbc.com
1 month ago

Fan letter written by Charles Dickens goes on show

"Miss Havisham is a quite extraordinary figure" she said, "it's just so interesting to see this woman who decides 'I'm independently wealthy and I'm going to have a child even though I haven't got married.' "It's fascinating that a male author came up with the idea of a woman bringing up a beautiful young woman to break men's hearts, to get her revenge on men."
Books
Books
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

February may be short on days but it boasts a long list of new books

February brings multiple commemorations and a wave of new, translated and genre‑blending book releases that invite readers to dive into fresh literary work.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

One Day has been a bestselling novel, a forgettable film, a beloved TV series now can it be a musical?

David Greig and Max Webster are adapting David Nicholls's One Day into a staged musical, tackling adaptation pitfalls while distinguishing the production from screen versions.
fromPublishersWeekly.com
2 months ago

WI2026: PW Talks with Xochitl Gonzalez

In addition to writing fiction, you're a staff writer for the and a screenwriter. How do you think of your career? I think of myself as a storyteller. I'm nosy, so once I'm telling a story, I want to know what happens. I do find, with fiction, I can't toggle in and out of it. It's like acting, where you have to stay with that character, in that world.
Books
Books
fromHarvard Gazette
2 months ago

The stories behind the books - Harvard Gazette

Harvard's library collection includes books that use layered images, movable elements, and raised type to create interactive, tactile, and accessible reading experiences.
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