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Blake Morrison

Blake Morrison is a writer and journalist. His non-fiction books include And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993), which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize and the Esquire/Volvo/Waterstone's Non-Fiction Book Award, As If (1997), about the murder of the toddler James Bulger in Liverpool in 1993, and a memoir of his mother, Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002). His poetry includes the collections Dark Glasses (1984), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award

July 2024

  • Alexandra Fuller.

    Fi: A Memoir of My Son by Alexandra Fuller review – to the edge of reason

    A mother’s unvarnished portrait of grief after the death of her 21-year-old son

June 2024

  • Ukrainian in trench training exercise.

    The Language of War by Oleksandr Mykhed review – ‘Eat, kill, grief, repeat’ reflections from Ukraine

    A ferociously angry testimony from Ukraine on the impact of war, where even literature loses its power to console

May 2024

  • Nancy Cunard at her Paris press in 1930.

    Book of the day
    The Book-Makers by Adam Smyth review – bound to be brilliant

    From calfskin to cut-and-paste, a tribute to the graft and craft that goes into books

April 2024

  • Salman Rushdie.

    Knife by Salman Rushdie review – a story of hatred defeated by love

    A book its author ‘would much rather not have needed to write’ ranges far beyond his attempted murder and recovery

March 2024

  • Spencer with Diana and their nanny Mary Clarke before his first term at Maidwell Hall in 1972.

    A Very Private School by Charles Spencer – a history of violence

    Spencer’s shocking and moving account of abuse at a boarding school combines righteous anger with therapeutic honesty

February 2024

  • Diane Foley in her hometown of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.

    American Mother by Colum McCann with Diane Foley review – steeliness and sorrow

    A mother’s account of the life and death of James Foley, the journalist murdered by Islamic State

January 2024

  • Martha Baillie

    There Is No Blue Martha Baillie review – a tough and tender family memoir

    The Canadian author explores her sister’s schizophrenia and the loss of her mother in a compelling trilogy of essays

December 2023

  • Illustration by Maria Grejc showing books in a modern living space with a Christmas tree

    2023 in Culture
    The best books to give as presents this Christmas

    Novelists and nonfiction writers reveal the books they will be giving as gifts – and the paperback they would love to find in their own stocking

September 2023

  • Jonathan Raban in 2015.

    Father & Son by Jonathan Raban – in retrospect

    The travel writer’s posthumously-published memoir charts a complex family history and his own life-changing illness

August 2023

  • Natasha Walter.

    Before the Light Fades by Natasha Walter review – love and resistance

    Searching for answers after her mother’s suicide, Walter rediscovers a radical family history

June 2023

  • George Orwell in the 1940s

    Book of the day
    Orwell by DJ Taylor review – a very English socialist

    George Orwell’s voice comes alive again in a biography drawing on newly discovered letters

May 2023

  • The former KGB building 
in Poltava, Ukraine.

    The Rooster House by Victoria Belim review – secrets and lies in Ukraine

    A woman’s quest to uncover her family’s difficult past reveals broader truths about the present conflict

February 2023

  • Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.

    Book of the day
    Metamorphosis by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst review – books as therapy

    A professor’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis leads to a life-affirming literary journey

January 2023

  • Blake Morrison at home in south London.

    Blake Morrison: ‘My sisters’ deaths left me feeling neglectful’

    After writing books about his father and his mother, Blake Morrison swore he didn’t have another memoir in him. Then his younger sister died, and he couldn’t escape the urge to tell her story

November 2022

  • Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1603-1604 by Caravaggio.

    Top 10s
    Top 10 books about fathers and sons

    In memoirs by authors from Philip Roth to Michael Frayn, the Dad-Lit genre is always a little oedipal but there is also room for warmer feelings

October 2022

  • John le Carré in Cornwall, 1996.

    Book of the day
    A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré 1945-2020 review – missives accomplished

  • Andrey Kurkov

    Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov review – Ukrainian life turned upside down

September 2022

  • AN Wilson

    Confessions: A Life of Failed Promises by AN Wilson review – a poignant memoir

    The controversialist is in a reflective mood as he examines his parents’ troubled relationship and the failures of his first marriage

August 2022

  • DH Lawrence in 1915.

    Look! We Have Come Through! by Lara Feigel review – in lockdown with DH Lawrence

    Feigel gives a candid account of how reading Lawrence made her confront difficult questions about who she is and what she believes

June 2022

  • Rudolf Vrba

    Book of the day
    The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland review – the man who broke out of Auschwitz

    The astonishing story of how Rudolf Vrba escaped the Nazi camp, and his mission to tell the world about it
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