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Books

  • Eagle’s Rock in County Leitrim

    Book of the day
    The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes review – follow your own path

    Ruth Gilligan
  • Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine in The Idea of You.

    ‘The writer of Fifty Shades gave me tips’
    Robinne Lee on her scorching bonkbuster The Idea of You

    The fortysomething turned her wildest fantasy – about running off with a boyband member for hot sex in fabulous locations – into a bestseller. As it hits the screen, Lee talks about writing steamy scenes in Starbucks – and her terror of being judged
  • Rebel Wilson.

    News
    Rebel Wilson memoir to be published in UK with Sacha Baron Cohen passages redacted

    Australian actor’s book Rebel Rising will have allegations of incident on set of Grimsby that left her ‘feeling bullied, humiliated, and compromised’ struck out
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What to read

  • Composite image of best paperbacks April 2024

    Paperbacks
    This month’s best paperbacks: Anne Enright, Sarah Bernstein and more

  • Making its power felt … China

    Five of the best
    Five of the best books to understand modern China

    • Read on

      100 best novels of all time
      From The Pilgrim's Progress to True History of the Kelly Gang

    • Books of the century so far

      The 100 best books of the 21st century

    • Composite for the 100 best nonfiction books of all time list

      100 best nonfiction books of all time
      From Naomi Klein to the Bible – the full list

Non-fiction reviews

  • The hair-loss treatment industry survives by making people feel bad about themselves.

    Autobiography and memoir
    Bald by Stuart Heritage review – hair today, gone tomorrow

    Simon Usborne
  • A nuclear weapon test in Nevada, 1952

    Society books
    Everything Must Go by Dorian Lynskey review – apocalypse now

    Fara Dabhoiwala
    A history of our obsession with the end of days – and the culture it has inspired
  • A volcanic eruption in the 2022 Werner Herzog documentary, The Fire Within, about Katia and Maurice Krafft.

    Science and nature books
    Adventures in Volcanoland by Tamsin Mather review – fire and brimstone

    Rachel Aspden
    A magical scientific exploration of volcanoes, and how they’ve shaped both nature and human destiny
  • Liz Truss

    Liz Truss
    Ten Years to Save the West review – shamelessly unrepentant

  • A screengrab from the trailer for "Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell"

    Biography books
    Travels Over Feeling: Arthur Russell, a Life by Richard King review – Village voice

    Sukhdev Sandhu
  • Salman Rushdie.

    Memoir
    Knife by Salman Rushdie review – a story of hatred defeated by love

    Blake Morrison
  • Travels Over Feeling: Arthur Russell, a Life Richard King AR_8.1

    Music books
    Travels Over Feeling: Arthur Russell, a Life review – down the rabbit hole with a musical maverick

    Kitty Empire
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Fiction & poetry reviews

  • Brick Lane

    Crime and thrillers roundup
    The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

    Laura Wilson
  • Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1946.

    Fiction
    The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh by Ingrid Persaud review – a bad man in Trinidad

    Shahidha Bari
    The troubling allure of a real-life gangster is vividly captured in tales from the women who fell for him
  • Sunjeev Sahota

    Fiction
    The Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev Sahota review – the political is personal

    Sam Byers
    This story of a man running to be union leader in a small Derbyshire town explores grief, guilt and ideological divides
  • A stranded whale

    Fiction
    Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor review – a debut with dark undercurrents

    Jude Cook
  • teenager reading

    Fiction
    Reading Lessons by Carol Atherton review – breathing new life into old texts

    Kathryn Hughes
  • Sicily.

    Fiction
    The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya review – sun, sex, scenery and family guilt

    Sarah Moss
  • A lightning strike over a church in Santorini, Greece.

    Thrillers of the month
    Crime and thrillers of the month – review

    Alison Flood
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Children's and YA books

  • Terrible Horses, by Raymond Antrobus and Ken Wilson-Max. PR pics from Walker Books - with words removed

    Children's book reviews round-up
    Picture books for children – reviews

    Imogen Carter
  • I’ll See You in Ijebu, illustrated by Diana Ejaita

    Children's book roundup
    The best new picture books and novels

    Farming adventures; tales from the set of The Sound of Music; King Arthur reimagined; unrest in near-future London and more
  • Cross My Heart and Never Lie by Nora Dasnes

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

    Fiona Noble
    First crushes, Rachel Greenlaw’s YA debut and the story of an improbable affair will make your heart beat faster this month
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Interviews

  • George the Poet

    George the Poet
    Poetry is the artistic wing of politics

  • Observer Books<br>Jo Hamya. Her second novel is called The Hypocrite.

    Jo Hamya
    Could I just write one massive grey area?

    The novelist and critic on finding inspiration in her Twitter timeline, why she found the middle-aged man in her new book easier to write than his daughter, and how she learned her craft through poetry
  • Sarah Perry.

    Sarah Perry
    For much of my life, I loved God. The echo of that never fades

    The Essex Serpent author on astronomy, her new novel Enlightenment and how her strict Baptist upbringing made its mark
  • ‘There is something ghostly about being adopted. A set of tiny details is not much to make into a whole person’ Jackie Kay.

    Poet Jackie Kay
    I could have been brought up by Tories!

  • Sunjeev Sahota<br>Booker prize nominee Sunjeev Sahota at home. Author of 'Our Are the Street,' ''China Room,' The Year of the Runaways,' and his latest novel 'The Spoiled Heart.'

    Sunjeev Sahota
    I’ve always been in labour movements – but I’m critical of identity politics

  • Percival Everett in his studio in LA March 11th 2024

    ‘I’d love a scathing review’
    Novelist Percival Everett on American Fiction and rewriting Huckleberry Finn

  • Author Michael Magee for Q &amp; A, New Review, Trafalgar Square area, Central London, 18/03/2024. Sophia Evans for The Observer

    Michael Magee
    There’s a disbelief at how I’ve ended up

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Regulars

  • Amor Towles.

    The books of my life
    Amor Towles: ‘When I reread Ulysses I found it insufferable. Don’t @ me’

  • Elia-Barbieri---The-Guardian-Saturday---Big-Idea---20th-April-2024---Do-we-sleep-in-order-to-dream-RGB-web

    Big idea
    The big idea: what if dreaming is the whole point of sleep?

    Rather than being an optional extra, dreams might be vital to our functioning
  • Expertly mined human treachery … Patricia Highsmith.

    Where to start with
    Where to start with: Patricia Highsmith

    Thanks to Netflix’s moody adaptation, Ripley, there’s more awareness of Highsmith’s skills as an expert writer of guilt, ambivalence and moral dilemmas at odds with reality
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