Do you feel that it’s harder to read than it used to be? Not harder to read emails, texts and social media posts, of course. We’re reading those all day long. Harder to sit down and lose yourself in a book? How long is it since you even sat down with a weekend newspaper and…
Max Porter, writer I recently read Gaining Ground by Joan Barfoot. It’s one of the best novels I’ve ever read about what it means to live with others, or decide not to; what we owe the people we love, the natural world, and ourselves. I also really enjoyed Robert Frost, by Robert Frost and Stacy…
It is important to follow a balanced diet on holiday. Too many “My Wife’s Sister’s Husband’s Psychopath”, and you’ll get confused and grumpy. Too much sugary romance and your teeth will fall out. Something too big and challenging you’ve been meaning to get round to for ages will make you feel guilty and more liable…
Featuring Colson Whitehead, Michael Cunningham, Claire Vaye Watkins, and More Colson Whitehead’s Cool Machine, Michael Cunningham’s Unsayable, and Claire Vaye Watkins’s Yellow Pine all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. Article continues after advertisement Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews. * Fiction 1. Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead(Doubleday) 14 Rave •…
One bright spring day in Paris, the man who would years later become my husband and I walked over a stone bridge onto the Ile St Louis to meet a distant cousin of his grandmother. In the dark, smoky, wood-lined interior of a tiny bistro, this princess from another world removed her chinchilla coat. I…
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 beginning and ending an entire book in a single day. Of all my reading experiences, these have been among the most memorable. As…
When Patrice Lawrence got the call asking her to become the UK’s next children’s laureate, her first response was disbelief. “I was in absolute shock,” she says, laughing. She is only just beginning to process what it means to join a lineage that includes Jacqueline Wilson, Quentin Blake, Michael Rosen, Julia Donaldson, Malorie Blackman and,…
Published on 02/07/2026 – 21:52 GMT+2•Updated 22:06 A year after being chosen to deliver the speech on Portugal Day, Portuguese writer Lídia Jorge, one of the country’s leading contemporary literary figures, has received the highest distinction awarded to authors writing in Portuguese, the Camões Prize. Jorge thus succeeds the Angolan poet Ana Paula Tavares, who…
Ollie, Guardian reader I just finished reading Wimmy Road Boyz by Sufiyaan Salam. I absolutely adored this book, a fantastic combination of violence and vulnerability set on Manchester’s Curry Mile. I became completely attached to the three main boys, and I loved all of the perspective shifts to different characters throughout the book. I fully…
Chloe Cherry is releasing a memoir. Somewhere Dark and Hot will release on Feb. 23, 2027, via Simon & Schuster, the publishing company announced on Friday. The memoir will recount Cherry’s time working in the adult entertainment industry to her ascent into the public eye in Sam Levinson’s HBO drama. At 18, the actress left…
