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Books
The novelist on her Jamaican upbringing, arguing with her Black readership, and why it took 20 years to return to writing
Wednesday, 4 March 2026
Zoe Strimpel believes that the patriarchy is in retreat and women have never had it so good
Saturday, 28 February 2026
A disgraced academic faces an unusual rural reckoning in Helen of Nowhere
Friday, 27 February 2026
Matthew Bell’s Goethe: A Life in Ideas reveals a restlessly inventive thinker who admired autocrats and shunned Christianity
Three books that show how power dressing has helped shape the modern monarchy
A new work from the award-winning author of Flèche
Sunday, 1 March 2026
In A Shellshocked Nation, the 1920s and 30s are a time of dancing, indulgence – and denial about the coming storm
Your essential guide from The Observer’s books desk
Thursday, 26 February 2026
This surreal, playful collection makes the case that poets should lighten up
In the Guatemalan writer's audacious work of autofiction, a stay at a Jewish holiday camp morphs into Nazi role play
Namwali Serpell’s study of the Nobel prize-winner’s canon is an exhilarating meeting of critical minds
Wednesday, 25 February 2026
The writer and publisher on the prize he created to champion independent imprints, and why we should be paying more for books
Tuesday, 24 February 2026
Stripe’s immersive memoir of her Yorkshire upbringing breathes in the smells – sweet and foul – of a lifetime’s experience
Friday, 20 February 2026
What I learned from working for the publisher who revolutionised literary London
Sunday, 22 February 2026
An awkward middle-aged composer teams up with a hotshot saxophonist in an exquisite odd-couple novel
Saturday, 21 February 2026
A new work from the Wellcome prize-winning novelist and poet
Who are the intellectuals behind Trumpism? Laura K Field’s Furious Minds identifies the movement's architects and competing factions
Wednesday, 18 February 2026
Three books that take their cue from the father of psychoanalysis
To be with the woman he loved, the comedian agreed to become an Orthodox Jew, not realising the lonely journey he would face
Thursday, 19 February 2026
This lyrical work of historical fiction transports us to a gossip-filled medieval court via the curious mind of a present-day curator
