The GuardianBooks Mary Warnock remembered by Onora O’Neill The Guardian - Onora O’NeillThere are many people who would not be alive today, but for the approach it took to IVF As a second-year student at Oxford, aged 19, I switched from history to PPP (philosophy, psychology and physiology)
The GuardianBooks Judith Kerr remembered by Lauren Child The Guardian - Lauren ChildI first met Judith years ago at a Christmas party in a tiny illustration gallery packed to squashing point. I thought she might have had enough of talking to strangers – everyone wanted to meet her – I
The GuardianBooks The Street: the 1940s African American thriller that became a huge bestseller The Guardian - Tayari JonesWhen The Street was published in 1946, African American literature was tacitly understood to be African American male literature; and women’s literature was coded as white women’s literature. Ann Petry
The GuardianBooks A Game of Birds and Wolves by Simon Parkin review – the ‘secret game that won the war’ The Guardian - Richard OveryOrdinary people did extraordinary things in wartime, and expressed emotions they might otherwise have viewed askance This is a curious book. The publisher, though perhaps not the author, claims that it
The GuardianBooks The naked truth: how to write a memoir The Guardian - Blake MorrisonSome memoirists send drafts of their work to loved ones, or even not-so-loved ones, and where there’s a response alter their writing as a result. Others see no need for consultation. Either way, when about
The GuardianBooks Ness by Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood review – forces of nature The Guardian - Andrew MotionRobert Macfarlane’s most recent book, Underland, came out only months ago, took him several years to write, and must rank as one of the most personally taxing books of its kind (it’s filled with accounts
The GuardianDonald Trump Trump/Netanyahu: Israel, America and the rise of authoritarianism-lite The Guardian - Lloyd GreenNetanyahu is an unabashed Jewish nationalist whose alignment with the Republican party is an expression of his DNA Like Trump, who clings to white evangelicals for dear life, Netanyahu has wedded himself
The GuardianBooks The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup The Guardian - Eric BrownAliya Whiteley’s Skein Island (Titan, £7.99) is a fine example of understated horror, whose accumulating sense of unease is only enhanced by being set in the familiar milieu of contemporary Britain. The
The GuardianBooks Sinéad Gleeson: ‘I don’t think reading offers comfort – a connection, yes’ The Guardian - Sinéad GleesonThe book I am currently reading Correspondences, an anthology of poems and personal writing from Syrian, Afghan and Nigerian asylum seekers living in Ireland’s horrific Direct Provision system. It’s powerful
The GuardianBooks 97,196 Words by Emmanuel Carrère review – essays from a French superstar writer The Guardian - Kathryn HughesIt is difficult to like Emanuel Carrère, yet impossible not to fall in love with him a bit too. Thanks to books such as Limonov (his account of a post-Soviet Russian hoodlum) and The Adversary (rather
The GuardianBooks I created a character called Will then set him running The Guardian - Will SelfThis portrait of my younger self that is not so much warts-and-all, as all warts I never wanted to write a memoir. No, really: I never wanted to write a memoir – or an autobiography for that matter – such
The GuardianBooks Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming by László Krasznahorkai review – mesmerisingly strange The Guardian - Sukhdev SandhuLong stretches of the novel lie there, slow and exhausting, like call waiting, drone music, middle age Before even its title page, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming comes prefaced with a “warning”. Over the
The GuardianBooks 'I thought you’d like to read this': the etiquette of gifting books The Guardian - Elle HuntAt least part of the satisfaction of giving books lies in at best signalling your own taste, and at worst imposing it A man was walking in New York City when he passed a street vendor with books laid on
The GuardianBooks Neal Katyal: ‘A second term for Donald Trump could fundamentally destabilise our democracy’ The Guardian - Julian BorgerIf – in the face of all the evidence – senators vote to acquit it will at least have been ‘a truth test to see where we are as a society’ It is the season of impeachment in Washington. As the temperature
The GuardianBooks The Scoundrel Harry Larkyns by Rebecca Gowers review – murder by Edward Muybridge The Guardian - PD SmithOn 17 October 1874, Edward Muybridge travelled from San Francisco – by ferry, train and two-horse buggy – to confront Harry Larkyns, the man who had been having an affair with his wife and who he believed
The GuardianBooks Don’t Look at Me Like That by Diana Athill review – a reissued gem The Guardian - John SelfBest known as an editor and memoirist, Diana Athill also wrote two books of short stories and this novel, first published in 1967 and now reissued. It shows her editor’s eye for an arresting opening –
The GuardianBooks The Far Right Today by Cas Mudde review – an alarming new mainstream The Guardian - Paul LewisHe considers the mix of developments since 2000, a period he identifies as the 'fourth wave' of far-right politics Back in 2012, the political scientist Cas Mudde wrote a lecture he planned to deliver
The GuardianBooks Start a fire: the best books about political awakenings The Guardian - Romesh GunesekeraThe journey to an awakening, whether of a fictional character, a reader or a writer, is rarely straightforward. In Suncatcher, my narrator’s political awareness begins as a young boy when he reads Trotsky
The GuardianBooks Two authors, one prize: competing with my spouse for the same award The Guardian - Benjamin MyersThere are an infinite number of things for couples to fall out over – a husband’s slovenly attitude towards domestic hygiene, for example, or a wife’s propensity for blasting 13-hour-long Spotify playlists
The GuardianBooks From Greek myth to the monkey-pig: what is a 'chimera'? The Guardian - Steven PooleChinese scientists announced this week that they had caused pigs that contain functioning monkey cells to be born, which was not an attempt to breed cleverer bacon but simply the unprecedented production
The GuardianBooks Top 10 dinner parties in fiction The Guardian - Nicci FrenchLife is full of stresses: death; divorce; disasters, natural and otherwise. But another stress under D in the dictionary of stresses is the Dinner Party. It’s a bit like opening a restaurant, it’s a bit
The GuardianBooks Hate baby showers and dinner parties? Sarah Knight wants you to say no The Guardian - Elle HuntI’m getting messages daily from teenagers, saying ‘I loved your book, it’s making me think about what I want to do with my life' Fuck seems to have been the word we’ve all needed to hear. As in, stop a
The GuardianBooks Exquisite Cadavers by Meena Kandasamy review – writing in the margins The Guardian - Aida EdemariamIn a lecture published in the essay collection Feel Free, Zadie Smith remembers the moment she began to write fiction in the first person. It was a revelation. The “I” had such an immediate “reality effect”,
The GuardianBooks Ian McKellen by Garry O’Connor review – from Richard III to Gandalf The Guardian - Simon CallowGarry O’Connor’s book about Ian McKellen is as much involved with ideas as it is with facts. It makes no claim to be an exhaustive account. O’Connor has been writing more or less experimental biographies
The GuardianBooks Fatherhood by Caleb Klaces review – lyrical, unsettling debut The Guardian - Paraic O’DonnellSome of the most exciting and unconventional fictions of recent years have converged, improbably or otherwise, on the ancient orthodoxies of the domestic sphere. From Jenny Offill’s wryly subversive Dept.
The GuardianJane Austen The Lost Books of Jane Austen by Janine Barchas review – how Austen's reputation has been warped The Guardian - John MullanJane Austen aficionados think that they know the story of their favourite author’s posthumous dis-appearance and then re-emergence. For half a century after she died in 1817, her books were little known
The GuardianBooks 'They' beats 'the' to 2019's word of the year The Guardian - Alison FloodThey, a common pronoun that can be traced back to the 13th century, has been named word of the year by Merriam-Webster dictionary because of its growing usage for non-binary individuals. The US dictionary,
The GuardianBooks Protests grow as Peter Handke receives Nobel medal in Sweden The Guardian - Alison FloodAs Turkey joins Albania and Kosovo in boycotting Tuesday’s Nobel prize ceremony for Peter Handke over his support for Slobodan Milosevic’s genocidal regime, war correspondents from Christiane Amanpour
The GuardianPoetry 'Ridiculously hard': how Neil Gaiman wrote a poem for refugees from 1,000 tweets The Guardian - Alison FloodComing up with his latest work was “ridiculously difficult”, Neil Gaiman admits. Last month, the Good Omens and American Gods author, who is also an ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner
