Books

JK Rowling and the deathly book review – it’s got fine company

JK Rowling and the deathly book review – it’s got fine company

Why the food world loves a queue

In this extract from her new book, Ruby Tandoh looks at why queues, rather than reviews, are now a mark of success

A table for… Alan Hollinghurst

The author shares the inspiration for his most recent novel, and that he doesn’t like to cook but loves a good party

The case for… Romance novels

What do you people have against jodhpurs and heaving bosoms?

In Cornwall, Raynor Winn’s portrayals left a sour taste

Locals speak of their shock at the way they have been characterised in the bestselling book

The great male novelist is back. Were reports of his death exaggerated?

Authors such as David Nicholls are topping the bestseller charts – but they are not the macho writers of old

Cat Cohen’s cultural highlights

Beehive hairdos, reality TV and ‘grotesque’ art – just some of the US comedian’s favourite things

How did A Little Life become the book of our times?

How did this 730-page novel concerned with horrific abuse become the book of our times?

Michael Morpurgo: ‘I don’t read much – that surprises people’

The author and playwright, 81, on the book that changed his life, enduring love and how he rediscovered singing

‘The torment that drove my mother to kill my father’

The writer reflects on a crime which shaped his own life, 10 years after coercive control was made a crime

Joyce Carol Oates: ‘In some ways, I’m writing into a vacuum’

The celebrated and prolific novelist discusses her latest book, the trend for autofiction and the magic of Ulysses

Sarah Hall: ‘The Helm Wind was like a childhood friend’

The author’s new novel is inspired by the dramatic Cumbrian skies of her formative years – and was 20 years in the making

The 20 books to get lost in this summer

From tales of teenage boyhood and female desire to Edwardian crime and the wonders of the brain, here is our essential holiday reading guide

‘Why I left my family home in Alum Rock behind’

Writer Kasim Ali is one of the few members of the community he grew up with in Birmingham’s Alum Rock to have left – and his family can’t understand why. He attempts to explain

A Balloon Ride: a new short story by Sarah Hall

Helm is a wild, mischievous wind that has blown across the Cumbrian fells since the dawn of time, without human company. But now a gravity-defying invention is intruding on its territory for the first time – and its excitable passengers believe they are unobserved. Helm, however, sees everything…

‘Never trust anyone who puts the milk in second’

The actor on losing his parents, finding his husband and putting the milk in first

The Salt Path author’s next book delayed by publisher Penguin

On Winter’s Hill on hold as company say its priority is to support Raynor Winn

Fact and fiction: Raynor Winn won’t talk to us. But here’s what she said about our story

After our exposé of the inaccuracies behind a couple’s walk to salvation, their defence raises new questions