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Books

  • Eagle’s Rock in County Leitrim

    Book of the day
    The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes review – follow your own path

    Ruth Gilligan
  • Nasser Abu Srour

    Autobiography and memoir
    The Tale of a Wall by Nasser Abu Srour review – a Palestinian prisoner writes

    Lydia Wilson
    Jailed since the first intifada, Abu Srour charts a deeply personal journey through the conflict that has defined his life
  • New York

    Fiction
    Real Americans by Rachel Khong – the lottery of life

    Chelsea Leu
    This multigenerational tale travels from China to New York in search of the true meaning of good fortune
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What to read

  • Composite image of best paperbacks April 2024

    Paperbacks
    This month’s best paperbacks: Anne Enright, Sarah Bernstein and more

  • Keely Hawes, left, and Rachael Stirling wearing top hats and suits while sitting on a velvet sofa

    Five of the best
    Five of the best books about queer relationships

    • Read on

      100 best novels of all time
      From The Pilgrim's Progress to True History of the Kelly Gang

    • Books of the century so far

      The 100 best books of the 21st century

    • Composite for the 100 best nonfiction books of all time list

      100 best nonfiction books of all time
      From Naomi Klein to the Bible – the full list

Non-fiction reviews

  • Jan Smuts holds the author’s mother (his granddaughter), Sibella Clark, in the doorway of Hindhayes, Street, Somerset, 1944.

    History books
    Moederland: Nine Daughters of South Africa review – my ancestors’ role in the horror of apartheid

    Karen Jennings
  • Salman Rushdie

    Autobiography and memoir
    Knife by Salman Rushdie review – a life interrupted

    Rachel Cooke
    While the author’s account of the 2022 murder attempt is a courageous defence of free speech, it is also shot through with self-regard, making it a sometimes hard book to admire
  • Britain gets new Prime Minister<br>Liz Truss walks towards her husband Hugh O'Leary and her daughters Frances and Liberty on her last day in office as British Prime Minister, outside Number 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, October 25, 2022. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

    Politics books
    Ten Years to Save the West by Liz Truss review – economical with the truth about her own downfall

    Andrew Rawnsley
    The former PM’s whingeing, unintentionally hilarious and scapegoating rant about the economy-crashing disaster of her time in No 10 is best read as a cautionary tale of hubristic zeal
  • The hair-loss treatment industry survives by making people feel bad about themselves.

    Autobiography and memoir
    Bald by Stuart Heritage review – hair today, gone tomorrow

    Simon Usborne
  • A nuclear weapon test in Nevada, 1952

    Society books
    Everything Must Go by Dorian Lynskey review – apocalypse now

    Fara Dabhoiwala
  • A volcanic eruption in the 2022 Werner Herzog documentary, The Fire Within, about Katia and Maurice Krafft.

    Science and nature books
    Adventures in Volcanoland by Tamsin Mather review – fire and brimstone

    Rachel Aspden
  • Liz Truss

    Liz Truss
    Ten Years to Save the West review – shamelessly unrepentant

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Fiction & poetry reviews

  • Four panels from book showing artist taking shower and meditating on self-improvement

    Graphic novel of the month
    Self-Esteem and the End of the World by Luke Healy review – male anxiety hilariously meets global crisis

    Rachel Cooke
  • Eliza Barry Callahan

    Fiction
    The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan review – a delightful debut about deafness

    John Self
    A promising first novel takes a jazzy, improvised journey with a young woman who has a sudden loss of hearing
  • Neel Mukherjee.

    Fiction
    Choice by Neel Mukherjee review – twisty tales of morals

    Abhrajyoti Chakraborty
    A publisher and his authors debate the balance of power between reader and writer in a novel comprising three long, loosely linked tales
  • Brick Lane

    Crime and thrillers roundup
    The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

    Laura Wilson
  • Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1946.

    Fiction
    The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh by Ingrid Persaud review – a bad man in Trinidad

    Shahidha Bari
  • Sunjeev Sahota

    Fiction
    The Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev Sahota review – the political is personal

    Sam Byers
  • A stranded whale

    Fiction
    Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor review – a debut with dark undercurrents

    Jude Cook
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Children's and YA books

  • Terrible Horses, by Raymond Antrobus and Ken Wilson-Max. PR pics from Walker Books - with words removed

    Children's book reviews round-up
    Picture books for children – reviews

    Imogen Carter
  • I’ll See You in Ijebu, illustrated by Diana Ejaita

    Children's book roundup
    The best new picture books and novels

    Farming adventures; tales from the set of The Sound of Music; King Arthur reimagined; unrest in near-future London and more
  • Cross My Heart and Never Lie by Nora Dasnes

    Children's book reviews round-up
    Young adult books roundup – reviews

    Fiona Noble
    First crushes, Rachel Greenlaw’s YA debut and the story of an improbable affair will make your heart beat faster this month
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Interviews

  • George the Poet

    George the Poet
    Poetry is the artistic wing of politics

  • Observer Books<br>Jo Hamya. Her second novel is called The Hypocrite.

    Jo Hamya
    Could I just write one massive grey area?

    The novelist and critic on finding inspiration in her Twitter timeline, why she found the middle-aged man in her new book easier to write than his daughter, and how she learned her craft through poetry
  • Sarah Perry.

    Sarah Perry
    For much of my life, I loved God. The echo of that never fades

    The Essex Serpent author on astronomy, her new novel Enlightenment and how her strict Baptist upbringing made its mark
  • ‘There is something ghostly about being adopted. A set of tiny details is not much to make into a whole person’ Jackie Kay.

    Poet Jackie Kay
    I could have been brought up by Tories!

  • Sunjeev Sahota<br>Booker prize nominee Sunjeev Sahota at home. Author of 'Our Are the Street,' ''China Room,' The Year of the Runaways,' and his latest novel 'The Spoiled Heart.'

    Sunjeev Sahota
    I’ve always been in labour movements – but I’m critical of identity politics

  • Percival Everett in his studio in LA March 11th 2024

    ‘I’d love a scathing review’
    Novelist Percival Everett on American Fiction and rewriting Huckleberry Finn

  • Author Michael Magee for Q &amp; A, New Review, Trafalgar Square area, Central London, 18/03/2024. Sophia Evans for The Observer

    Michael Magee
    There’s a disbelief at how I’ve ended up

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Regulars

  • Amor Towles.

    The books of my life
    Amor Towles: ‘When I reread Ulysses I found it insufferable. Don’t @ me’

  • Elia-Barbieri---The-Guardian-Saturday---Big-Idea---20th-April-2024---Do-we-sleep-in-order-to-dream-RGB-web

    Big idea
    The big idea: what if dreaming is the whole point of sleep?

    Rather than being an optional extra, dreams might be vital to our functioning
  • Expertly mined human treachery … Patricia Highsmith.

    Where to start with
    Where to start with: Patricia Highsmith

    Thanks to Netflix’s moody adaptation, Ripley, there’s more awareness of Highsmith’s skills as an expert writer of guilt, ambivalence and moral dilemmas at odds with reality
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You may have missed

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