The time loop story, in which characters repeatedly relive the same span of time, has become synonymous with the 1993 film Groundhog Day, but the idea has much older roots. In PD... Read more »
Christmas nowadays tends to revolve around family, food and a furtive visit from a pot-bellied stranger down the chimney. But in The Dead of Winter, the historian and folklorist Sarah Clegg reveals... Read more »
Novelist Elif Shafak has been named the new president of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL), taking over from Bernardine Evaristo as she reaches the end of her four-year term. British-Turkish writer... Read more »
Circular Motion Alex Foster (Grove)Alex Foster’s novel treats climate catastrophe through high-concept satire. A new technology of super-fast pods revolutionises travel: launched into low orbit from spring-loaded podiums, they fly west and... Read more »
Margaret Atwood has said the plot of her book The Handmaid’s Tale, which tells a story of an authoritarian regime under which women are forced to reproduce, has become “more and more... Read more »
There aren’t many giants of 20th-century literature still writing, but 2025 saw the first novel in 12 years from American great Thomas Pynchon, now in his late 80s: Shadow Ticket (Jonathan Cape) is a typically... Read more »
Monday It’s publication week for American Canto, the hastily turned around memoir by the former New York magazine journalist Olivia Nuzzi, who took on the challenge of explaining what it was about... Read more »
Fiction The Guardian’s fiction editor picks the best of the year, from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Count to Thomas Pynchon’s return, David Szalay’s Booker winner and a remarkable collection of short stories.... Read more »