David Baddiel: ‘Football fills a God-shaped hole’

Ahead of a new book about our need for faith, the ‘militant atheist’ discusses oversharing, identity – and why he’s distancing himself from Richard Dawkins

Sam Neill on his new memoir and living with blood cancer: ‘I’m not afraid to die, but it would annoy me’

The New Zealand actor’s new memoir reveals that he has been ‘crook’ with blood cancer and will need chemo for the rest of his life. But relaxing on his farm, he is philosophical. ‘Dying? I couldn’t care less,’ he says

Andrea Leadsom: ‘I was determined to become prime minister and deliver Brexit myself’

The Conservative MP and arch-leaver discusses the upside of life outside the EU, serpents in Westminster and the interview that sank her leadership bid

Margaret Atwood: ‘It would be fun to talk to Simone de Beauvoir’

The author on being banned in Virginia, communicating with dead writers and her new short story collection, the first since the death of her partner

‘She helped define what a first lady does’: Edith Wilson’s complex legacy

A new book paints President Woodrow Wilson’s wife as a complicated change-maker who refused to blend into the background

‘In the stillness, my mind was able to wander’: how a museum guard found solace in art

After a tragedy, Patrick Bringley swapped his glitzy magazine job to work at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The experience was so profound, he wrote a book about it

Melvyn Bragg: ‘At 83, time goes round too quickly’

The broadcaster and writer on revisiting childhood for his nostalgic memoir, the genius of George Orwell, and his love of dancing

Who made you king of everything? Angela Saini on the origins of patriarchy

The journalist has written acclaimed books tackling race science and gender inequality. Next up, the patriarchy – which is neither natural nor inevitable, she argues

A greener Marx? Kohei Saito on connecting communism with the climate crisis

Author of surprise hit Capital in the Anthropocene has developed his arguments in a new study of Karl Marx’s ecological thinking

‘Why can’t we be the hero?’: George Webster on acting, ambition, romance and big breaks

He is a CBeebies star, a Bafta winner, an author and an ambassador for people with Down’s syndrome. Is there anything George can’t do? Well, there is one thing, says his mother …

‘I’ll always be a bad feminist!’: Roxane Gay on love, success – and upsetting Piers Morgan

The writer, academic and cultural critic has had a tumultuous few years, full of love, grief and phenomenal creativity. She discusses women’s rights, writer’s block and why every day with her wife remains an adventure

When your ex gets the cat: the writer who divorced in her 20s – and turned it into a runaway bestseller

The Schitt’s Creek screenwriter Monica Heisey discusses her debut novel, the similarities between heartbreak and food poisoning, and why failure doesn’t need to make you feel terrible

‘I’m a nepo baby’: Jon Snow on class, sanity and Margaret Thatcher

Two years ago, Snow left Channel 4 News, after anchoring the show for more than three decades. Now he has written a memoir. He discusses boarding school misery, family connections and why Boris Johnson is a chancer

Em Strang: ‘Right now we’re living through a time of incredible misogyny’

The award-winning poet on writing in the voice of a convicted killer, her excavation of the masculine psyche and why she wants to read less

Eleanor Catton: ‘I felt so much doubt after winning the Booker’

In 2013, at 28, Eleanor Catton became the youngest ever Booker winner with The Luminaries. She talks about adapting the novel for screen, being shut out of her native New Zealand and why it has taken 10 years to write a follow-up