Booker shortlist 2012: why language will prove victorious, whoever wins

This year's Man Booker prize has ditched 'readability' in favour of 'the pure power of prose'. Robert McCrum assesses the six novels in contention

Are professional book reviewers better than amateurs?

Robert McCrum: Man Booker chairman Peter Stothard's comment that "not everyone's opinion is worth the same" is worth taking seriously

The Booker shortlist at the best price

With the winner to be announced next month, we go in search of the best-priced deals on the final titles

Why book bloggers are critical to literary criticism

John Self: Booker prize head judge Peter Stothard says book blogs harm literature, but a blog can explore a work at length and give coverage to books other than the newly published

Deborah Levy: ‘It’s a page-turner about sorrow’

Booker-nominated writer Deborah Levy talks to Kate Kellaway about her dazzling novel and why repression is more interesting than depression

Man Booker prize: cultural elitism’s great. Join in the fun

Alex Clark: The Man Booker panel is back to using critical rigour rather than horribly subjective 'readibility'

Costa Coffee should keep out of book prizes – and town centres

Joan Brady: Big brands such as Costa should have no place in the UK's rich literary heritage – nor on our high streets

Booker prize shortlist 2012: Mantel and Self lead contenders

The Man Booker prize 2012 shortlist has just been announced. We'll have the full news story up as soon as we can; meanwhile, here's the list. What do you make of it?

Salman Rushdie film courts Indian controversy

The film of Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children – a love letter to India – has failed to find a distributor in the country

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore – review

Longlisted for the Man Booker, this strikingly creepy debut is a superb exploration of the lingering effect of boyhood trauma, says Anthony Cummins

Religious censorship crushes creativity. So is it ever right to ban art?

Jeet Thayil: India's tendency for self-censorship is saddening. But even the most liberal minds sometimes see the need for holding back

The Booker steps away from being its own genre

Andrew Gallix: The inclusion on the Man Booker longlist of four debuts and three novels from excellent indie publishers is a welcome sign

The unnoticed bias of the Booker prize

Alan Bissett: Can a prize which has honoured such a disproportionate number of English writers really be choosing the best of Commonwealth literature?

Tino Sehgal, participatory art and the Booker prize: a week in the arts

Charlotte Higgins: Who's on – and off – the Man Booker longlist, varying responses to Tino Sehgal's new Turbine Hall installation and the Twitter debate about who should be paid in participatory art