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Books

  • The runway at Munich airport, following the crash that killed eight of Manchester United’s players in 1958.

    Book of the day
    Munichs by David Peace review – bravura portrait of a football tragedy

    Alex Clark
  • Medical workers in Chengdu, Sichuan.

    Autobiography and memoir
    Other Rivers by Peter Hessler review – spotlight on Generation Xi

    Amy Hawkins
    An American’s view of life in China during the tumultuous Covid years
  • Gabriella Wilde and Alex Pettyfer in the film adaptation of Endless Love.

    Five of the best
    Five of the best books about yearning

    These exceptional tales explore the sweet, infuriating agony of being overwhelmed by passion and desire
  • Sarah Manguso

    Fiction
    Liars by Sarah Manguso review – searing tale of a toxic marriage

    Lara Feigel
  • Muammar Gaddafi with Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba in 1983.

    Politics books
    How Tyrants Fall by Marcel Dirsus review – road to revolution

    Pratinav Anil
  • Pedro Almodóvar.

    Short stories
    The Last Dream by Pedro Almodóvar review – fantastical fictions and candid personal curios

    Guy Lodge Observer film columnist
  • A man reading a book in bed at home.

    Tell us
    What have you been reading this month?

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

What to read

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Non-fiction reviews

  • Sammy Wright, head of school at Southmoor Academy in Sunderland.

    Education books
    Exam Nation by Sammy Wright review – testing times

    Fiona Millar
  • Trump with the Celebrity Apprentice candidates, 2007.

    TV and radio books
    Apprentice in Wonderland by Ramin Setoodeh review – how Donald Trump’s big break changed America

    Peter Conrad
    The inside story of the creation of the reality show featuring the former US president shows how politics was transformed into a branch of the entertainment industry
  • The novelist Muriel Spark, who during the second world war left her four-year-old son in the care of nuns in Rhodesia and moved back to Britain.

    Society books
    The Abandoners by Begoña Gómez Urzaiz review – why do some mothers desert their children?

    Gaby Hinsliff
    A fascinating study of famous women who break the ultimate taboo is just as powerful in capturing the everyday guilt of mothers who quietly dream of freedom
  • A young WH Auden on a dock at Cherry Grove on Fire Island, New York.

    Literature books
    The Island: WH Auden and the Last of Englishness review – a deep dive into the poet’s early years

    Rachel Cooke
  • Audre Lorde at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida in 1983.

    Biography books
    Survival Is a Promise by Alexis Pauline Gumbs review – a cosmic perspective on Audre Lorde

    Lola Olufemi
  • George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, 1975.

    Music books
    And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: A Journey Through Global Music by Joe Boyd review – the Proust of music

    Ed Vulliamy
  • Moon Unit and Frank Zappa interviewed onMTV in 1982.

    Autobiography and memoir
    Earth to Moon by Moon Unit Zappa review – rock and a hard place

    Kitty Empire
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Fiction & poetry reviews

  • The Murder of Agamemnon, 1880 by John Flaxman.

    Fiction
    The Voyage Home by Pat Barker review – a gritty Greek game of thrones

    Anthony Cummins
  • Kate Atkinson

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

    Laura Wilson
    Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson; Guilty By Definition by Susie Dent; Sanctuary by Garry Disher; The Examiner by Janice Hallett; Sounds Like a Plan by Pamela Samuels Young and Dwayne Alexander Smith
  • Poet and author Sam Sax.

    Fiction
    Yr Dead by Sam Sax review – comedy and darkness in an inventive debut novel

    Miriam Balanescu
    A young queer activist looks back on how a complex life unspooled into a final, fatal act in the award-winning poet’s ambitious, unflinching tale
  • Ibizan mysteries in The Life Impossible.

    Fiction
    The Life Impossible by Matt Haig review – a journey of rediscovery

    Joanna Cannon
  • Charlotte Mendelson

    Fiction
    Wife by Charlotte Mendelson review – married to a monster

    Clare Clark
  • USA, California, Death Valley, cattle skull on the Racetrack Playa<br>Death Valley National Park

    Short stories
    Concerning the Future of Souls: 99 Stories of Azrael by Joy Williams review – brilliantly deadpan

    Anne Enright
  • ‘The kirk is empty; the local industry dried up’ in Phantom Limb.

    Fiction
    Phantom Limb by Chris Kohler review – an unusual debut

    Christopher Shrimpton
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Children's and YA books

  • Hot Dog by Doug Salati

    Children's book roundup
    Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

    Imogen Russell Williams
  • Reek by Alastair Chisholm<br>

    Children and teenagers
    Children’s and teens roundup – the best new chapter books

    Kitty Empire
    A hair-raising gameworld adventure, a dystopian thriller set in Edinburgh and a magical tale involving book jumping are among this month’s highlights
  • Grotti by Leonie Lord

    Children's book roundup
    Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

    Imogen Russell Williams
    A tender-hearted knight; a malodorous mutt; a very mean goose; the last dragon on earth; enemies-to-lovers romance and more
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Interviews

  • Mark Haddon at his home in Oxford.

    Interview
    Author Mark Haddon: ‘Bodies are such a good source of drama’

    Anthony Cummins
  • Kate Atkinson Ormerod Hires-2

    Interview
    Novelist Kate Atkinson: ‘I do feel a need to prove myself’

    As her latest Jackson Brodie thriller comes out, the award-winning author discusses cosy crime, sniffy critics, and how she investigated her own family’s secrets
  • Sarah Manguso in Santa Monica, California.

    Interview
    Sarah Manguso: ‘I seem to have hit on a cultural sore spot’

    The American author on her rage-filled new novel about the end of a marriage, the extraordinary response to it, and the authors she thinks are most underrated
  • Elif Shafak

    Interview
    Elif Shafak: ‘As a writer in Turkey, you can be attacked, put on trial, imprisoned’

  • Richard Evans sitting in a leather armchair.

    Interview
    Historian Richard J Evans: ‘I’m planning to write a book about pandemics next. I’ve had enough of Nazis’

  • Ben Myers and Pat Barker<br>Writers Ben Myer and Pat Barker, Durham, UK.

    Interview
    Pat Barker and Benjamin Myers in conversation: ‘I’m absolutely intolerable when I’m not writing’

  • Mick Herron.

    Interview
    Mick Herron: ‘Most people didn’t know I was writing – I was a secretive kind of writer’

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Regulars

  • Jamaica Kincaid

    The books of my life
    Jamaica Kincaid: ‘Don’t get me started on the New Testament, that celebrity magazine’

  • Elia-Barbieri--

    Big idea
    The big idea: are we all beginning to have the same taste?

    Music seems to be at the forefront of a rush to uniformity. It’s time to rebel
  • James Baldwin.

    Where to start with
    Where to start with: James Baldwin

    The great American author and civil rights activist’s works offered prophetic warnings, generosity of spirit and clarity like no other when it came to race relations
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You may have missed

  • Frame in her early 40s.

    Janet Frame
    From poverty, psychiatric hospital and writing in a shed to literary stardom: Janet Frame at 100

    Catherine Taylor
  • pic of maze

    Feature
    The curious incident of the author who couldn’t read or write: Mark Haddon on long Covid and overcoming five years of brain fog

    Mark Haddon
  • ‘The wonderful world of words’ … Bradford literature festival.

    Festival funding
    The future of UK literary festivals: ‘There is no magic fairy’

  • Eve Babitz in 1974, on the day Eve’s Hollywood came out

    Feature
    ‘A spy in the land of the privileged’: why Eve Babitz’s cult Hollywood memoir still matters 50 years on

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