John O’Farrell’s top 10 celebrity appearances in fiction
Risking recrimination and lawsuits, some novelists have inserted real life public figures into their books. Here are my favourite star appearances...
View ArticleNational Book awards: how obscure can the judges go?
Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies is the most hyped novel, while Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me is a strong bet for non-fiction. But that can all change...
View ArticleInterview With Performance Poet Jacqueline Suskin
Performance Poet Jacqueline Suskin Photo courtesy of Jacqueline Suskin Strolling through the Hollywood Farmers Market one day, I spotted something one doesn't ordinarily see at farmers markets--an...
View ArticleThe Best Australian Stories 2015 review – short sharp hits of homegrown fiction
From high-rise Tokyo hotels to a train from Perth to Fremantle, the settings of these short stories show how far we have travelled from the archetypal bush yarn...
View Article2015's 5 Under 35 celebration spotlights the promising writers you should be...
The book community came together Monday night in New York City to honor the literary world's best emerging writers at the National Book Foundation's annual 5 Under 35 celebration. Founded in 2006, 5...
View ArticleI couldn’t get a book deal until I moved to Australia
I moved to Australia because I fell in love. Seven years ago, most Irish people were coming out here to escape the recession but not me. I was, as I told my mother, on a “look, see”. Joe and I had had...
View ArticlePupils celebrate their chosen Hampshire Book Award Winner (Hampshire County...
(Source: Hampshire County Council) Jonathan Stroud, author of 'The Screaming Staircase', met with Year 8 students from Hampshire schools today at Winchester Guildhall (12 November 2015) to collect this...
View ArticleLiterature vs genre is a battle where both sides lose
Literary fiction is an artificial luxury brand but it doesn’t sell. So nobody benefits by fencing it off from more popular writing...
View ArticleWhy I love Jacqueline Wilson and you should join the Guardian children's...
Site member Writer-on-wheels AKA Chloe got to attend the launch of Jacqueline Wilson’s latest Hetty Feather adventure, Little Stars. Here’s what happened – plus learn how to draw Diamond from Hetty...
View Article'The Promise,' A Conversation with Robert Crais
Photo: Exley Foto Robert Crais, known to lovers of suspense and crime novels for having written many New York Times bestsellers, including Suspect and Taken, has just completed The Promise, his...
View ArticleWhen Greg Pardlo Won The 2015 Pulitzer Prize For Poetry, He Was A Graduate...
Greg Pardlo submitted "Digest," his slim book of poems, to the major publishers. All rejected it. He sent it to Four Way Books, which is, like the poet, literary and decidedly non-profit. In 2014, Four...
View ArticleWhen Greg Pardlo Won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, He Was a Graduate...
Greg Pardlo submitted "Digest," his slim book of poems, to the major publishers. All rejected it. He sent it to Four Way Books, which is, like the poet, literary and decidedly non-profit. In 2014, Four...
View ArticleInterview with Dimitris Politis, Author of 'The Stolen Life of a Cheerful Man'
I love reading books that speak to you, ones which make you a changed man afterwards. Such books draws you in, whether it is through the drama or the passion of the author, and tend to stick with you....
View ArticleAdolescent Maneuvering of Loss and Grief
A Series of Small Maneuvers (Ooligan Press, 2015) by Eliot Treichel is an exquisite debut novel about a father/daughter river trip gone horribly wrong. Classified as young adult due to the age of the...
View ArticleRecognise the value of feedback: Karishma Attari
Karishma Attari, a Mumbai-based writer and book reviewer, turns author with her debut novel, I See You — a coming-of-age tale about a 17-year-old girl, with a spooky twist. Which is the best opening...
View ArticleChinese whispers, or reshaping memories to create fiction
Children probably still play Chinese whispers. It had great currency in my youth. You whispered a phrase to your neighbour and she to hers, and so it passed down the line. There was much hilarity when...
View ArticleRosita Sweetman on Eggshells: ‘without a doubt the best new novel of the year’
Eggshells, Catriona Lally’s debut novel, is fantastically good. Cracking off thusly: “When I return to my great aunt’s house with her ashes, the air feels uncertain, as if it doesn’t know how to deal...
View ArticleDanielle McLaughlin’s Dinosaurs on Other Planets: The Irish Times Book Club
Dinosaurs on Other Planets by Danielle McLaughlin is the new Irish Times Book Club choice. Over the next few weeks, we will explore this superb collection of short stories, publishing interviews,...
View ArticleJK Rowling recalls 'amazing' moment she met her idol Morrissey
Harry Potter author remembers the shock of her encounter with the Smiths singer, in a Guardian interview that touches on Twitter trolls and the joy of being an undiscovered writer again...
View ArticleIf you enjoyed a good book and you're a woman, the critics think you're wrong
Unlike critics who write about film or food or music, book critics are rarely required to engage with popular material. Critics ignore the books that people are actually reading; readers ignore the...
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