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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Books

  • Lauren Groff.

    The books of my life
    Lauren Groff: ‘Virginia Woolf’s Flush is delightfully bananas’

  • jars of pickles

    Book of the day
    Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang review – food, sex and morality in the end times

    Sarah Moss
    A private chef for the ultra-rich confronts the inequality of survival, in a sensual novel of ideas that asks difficult questions
  • Anne Heltzel.

    'Motherhood is a cult, to a degree'
    Anne Heltzel on her horror novel about parenthood

    The author explains how Just Like Mother, her gothic horror tale of a cult fixated on childbearing, is uncomfortably close to reality
  • John Malkovich and Gary Sinise as Lennie and George in the 1992 film adaptation of Of Mice and Men.

    News
    Of?Mice and Men first-draft fragment torn up by Steinbeck’s dog goes to auction

  • JM Coetzee.

    Where to start with
    Where to start with: JM Coetzee

    Will Forrester
  • Paul Newman

    Audiobook of the week
    The?Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man by Paul Newman audiobook review – unfiltered Hollywood

    Fiona Sturges
  • Roxane Gay

    Essays
    Opinions by Roxane Gay review – the art of argument

    Arwa Mahdawi
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What to read

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Non-fiction reviews

  • The Shibuya pedestrian crossing in Tokyo.

    Society books
    A?Theory of Everyone by Michael Muthukrishna review – the laws of life

    Sophie McBain
  • Bob Dylan performing at the Concert for Bangladesh, Madison Square Garden, New York, August 1971.

    Music books
    The?Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 2: 1966-2021 by Clinton Heylin review – a fierce kind of love

    Kate Mossman
    The Dylan scholar won’t accept any criticism of his idol unless he himself is wielding the sword in his latest exhaustive attempt to understand the ultimate unreliable narrator
  • FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to media mogul Rupert Murdoch as they walk out of Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen<br>FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (R) speaks to media mogul Rupert Murdoch as they walk out of Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, Scotland, June 25, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo

    Journalism books
    The?Fall: The End of the Murdoch Empire by Michael Wolff review – a succession of absurdities

    Dorothy Byrne
    A forensic holding to account of Rupert Murdoch and the power of Fox News is desperately needed, but this isn’t it
    • Clive Myrie.

      Autobiography and memoir
      Everything Is Everything by Clive Myrie review – the man behind the headlines

      Colin Grant
    • British prime minister Stanley Baldwin, centre, flanked by (l-r) Lord Curzon, Canadian prime minister Mackenzie King, Australian prime minister Stanley Bruce and Canadian diplomat Vincent Massey in the garden at 10 Downing Street during the 1923 Imperial Conference.

      History books
      One?Fine Day by Matthew Parker review – compelling portrait of the British empire on the brink of decline

      Christienna Fryar
    • Women Reporters<br>Two female reporters in their office, UK, March 1952. Original Publication: Picture Post - 5751 - Women Journalists - unpub March 1952. (Photo by Grace Robertson/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

      Society books
      Jobs for the Girls by Ysenda Maxtone Graham review – how the other half worked

      Rachel Cooke
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Fiction & poetry reviews

  • Stranded … The Living and the Rest tells a tale of survival on the Island of Mozambique.

    Fiction in translation
    The?best recent translated fiction – review roundup

  • Troy (2004) directed by Wolfgang Petersen.

    Fiction
    The?Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson review – a bravura feat

    Edith Hall
    Six years on from her translation of the Odyssey, Wilson revels in the clarity and emotional clout of Homer’s battlefield epic
  • MANCHESTER, 26 August 2020 - Luxury apartments and penthouses at the UK’s tallest residential development at Deansgate Square, a cluster of four skyscraper towers dwarfing neighbouring buildings on the southern edge of Manchester city centre, the highest topping out at 201m and 64 storeys. Christopher Thomond for The Guardian.

    Fiction
    My?Weil by Lars Iyer review – a sharp satire on the state of higher education

    Christopher Shrimpton
    Corporate academia, a crumbling society and student pretensions are all skewered in this darkly comic novel
  • Wiltshire Jack (c) Jessica Gill

    Poetry
    Enter the Water by Jack Wiltshire review – the company of birds

    Kate Kellaway
  • Francis Spufford: ‘one of our most interesting and unpredictable writers’.

    Fiction
    Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford review – a ‘what if’ classic

    Alex Preston
  • News In Holloway Prison<br>Prisoners read one of the newspapers pinned up by the chaplain at Holloway Prison, north London, March 1947. The copy of the Daily Mail pictured leads with the gales and floods of 16th March. Built in 1852, HM Prison Holloway became a female-only prison in 1903. Original publication: Picture Post - 4425 - Inside Holloway Prison - pub. 13th September 1947. (Photo by Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

    Fiction
    Sheep’s Clothing by Celia Dale review – deft tale of female scammers

    Lucy Popescu
  • Yiyun Li in the garden of her home in New Jersey

    Short stories
    Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun Li review – dialogues with death

    Anthony Cummins
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Children's and YA books

  • A page from Mama’s Sleeping Scarf by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and illustrator Joelle Avelino.

    Children's book roundup
    Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

    Imogen Russell Williams
  • Rear view two teen girls best friends holding hands behind back and hugging<br>2M6XDJC Rear view two teen girls best friends holding hands behind back and hugging

    Children's book reviews round-up
    Young adult books roundup – reviews

    Fiona Noble
    Slapstick murders, a deadly competition between thieves and the very different fortunes of three Victorian-era girls are among this month’s highlights
  • The Best Bad Day Ever by Marianna Coppo

    Children's book roundup
    Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

    A very grumpy toddler; poems for the planet; ancient demons unleashed; and a moving YA trafficking tale
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Interviews

  • A smiling Mary Beard in her library at home in Cambridge, shelves full of books behind her, standing beside a bust of the Roman emperor Vitellius.

    Mary Beard
    The?last thing I’d want is a world in which we all agreed

  • Susie Dent

    Susie Dent
    English has always evolved by mistake

    The queen of Countdown’s dictionary corner on the power of positive language and finding joy in ‘mubble fubbles’
  • Julian Barnes.

    Julian Barnes
    I didn’t think it was possible to be a novelist

    The Booker winning author talks about how his most recent work was inspired by Hilary Mantel, and the way the books world has changed since his debut was published more than 40 years ago
  • Shane McCrae in New York.

    Poet Shane McCrae
    They kidnapped me to get me away from Blackness

  • Olga Ravn in a red dress

    Olga Ravn
    Learning how to love a child isn’t something that happens in a second

  • ‘I’m angrier about certain things than men are’ … Karin Smirnoff, whose novel is called The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons.

    Karin Smirnoff on her shocking sequel
    It’s time the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo grew up

  • illustration

    ‘I hope I’m wrong’
    The?co-founder of DeepMind on how AI threatens to reshape life as we know it

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Regulars

  • Lauren Groff.

    The books of my life
    Lauren Groff: ‘Virginia Woolf’s Flush is delightfully bananas’

  • Big Idea

    Big idea
    The?big idea: how do we make future generations smarter?

    Our education system needs a radical rethink for the digital age
  • Anne-Marie Duff as Lady Macbeth in the National Theatre’s 2018 production of Macbeth.

    The last word
    ‘You don’t know what you might have set upon yourself’: the best descriptions of ambition in literature

    The last word, our series about emotions in books, focuses on those who are determined to succeed this month, from Lady Macbeth to Flaubert’s privileged college boys
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You may have missed

  • Megan Kakimoto.

    ‘Our Hawaiian stories are not meant to be easy for you’
    Megan Kamalei Kakimoto on telling her ancestral tales

  • A bust of Nero looking into a mirror

    Mary Beard
    We’re not the first generation to wonder how genuine our leaders are

  • Maureen Freely, author, photographed in her home in Batheaston.

    Maureen Freely
    Turkey is a place where writers matter

    Anthony Cummins
  • Howl’s Moving Castle.

    ‘A true original’
    Katherine Rundell on the genius of Diana Wynne Jones

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