I run a reading workshop which begins with a little shelf assessment. Participants bring a stack of books that have shaped who they are: childhood treasures; new revelations; comfort reads. Books they... Read more »
For a long time Elif Shafak was referred to as Turkey’s “most widely read female author”. Today, she is surely simply its best loved. Orhan Pamuk may have won the Nobel prize in... Read more »
The artist and novelist Audrey Niffenegger began writing the long-awaited sequel to her bestselling debut, The Time Traveler’s Wife, in 2012, just after Obama’s re-election. It was a “rosy” time in American... Read more »
Kate Mosse’s new book is a love-song to West Sussex, part of a series designed to bring out its authors’ personal connections to a home landscape. It began last year, with Michael Morpurgo... Read more »
My earliest reading memoryThe first books I remember were from The Village with Three Corners series Sheila K McCullagh. I loved the – literally – colourful characters, like Johnny Yellow Hat. I... Read more »
Almost 14% of Ireland is bog: vast swathes of moss-carpeted land, below which layers of ancient history have been compounded into mulch-black turf. Captivated by their otherworldly beauty, Seamus Heaney wrote some of his... Read more »
A one-sitting read is typically the domain of the short story – a form that largely depends on a reader’s pure, unbroken attention. But there is something special about the intensity of... Read more »
Dementia, war, migration and loneliness are among the themes of the six novels selected for this year’s Miles Franklin award, Australia’s most esteemed literary prize, worth $60,000. Announced on Wednesday, the 2026... Read more »
100 by Anthony Powell William Wood, Alberta, Canada, 68, retired art historian: “A series of novels that concerns several specific tiers of English society in the first three-quarters of the 20th century... Read more »