Country star Ty Herndon: ‘The drugs could be forgiven. Being gay definitely could not’

In an honest new memoir, the musician opens up about being closeted in country, sexual assault and finding love in his 60s

Muskism by Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff review – how Elon Musk is reshaping the world

Henry Ford changed the face of industry forever – what kind of economic model do Musk’s methods presage?

Orwell: 2+2=5 review – documentary portrait doesn’t wholly add up

Raoul Peck’s film about the Nineteen Eighty-Four novelist makes a compelling case for its continuing relevance but could ask more searching questions about its author

Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh review – high-concept adultery fable

Unfaithful lovers escape to an uncanny alternate world, in this compelling allegory for infidelity and desire

Poem about ‘relentlessness of the news cycle’ wins National Poetry Competition

Judges praised the ‘emotional stakes’ of Partridge Boswell’s poem The Gathering, which took the £5,000 top prize

First trailer for Harry Potter TV series reveals much-anticipated new take

First real look at HBO’s big-budget small screen take on JK Rowling’s best-selling books also reveals that first season will premiere this Christmas

First Queen’s reading medal goes to Black British book festival founder Selina Brown

The founder of Europe’s largest celebration of Black literature and champion of inclusive reading becomes Queen Camilla’s inaugural National Reading Hero

Glenn Storhaug obituary

Other lives: Poet and publisher who founded Five Seasons Press in the late 1970s to share his enthusiasm of the form

Peter Messent obituary

Other lives: Professor of American studies at Nottingham University and an authority on the writer Mark Twain

When my best friend died, I couldn’t bear to delete her phone contact. Here’s why I never will

Soon after the author Gabrielle Carey died, her name lit up my phone – causing an indescribable mix of elation and disbelief

Arundhati Roy and Lyse Doucet lead ‘exceptional’ Women’s prize for nonfiction shortlist

Roy’s memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me and Doucet’s The Finest Hotel in Kabul are joined by books on exile by Ece Temelkuran and Judith Mackrell and an ode to the arts by Daisy Fancourt

Underland review – poetic exploration of life deep beneath the Earth’s surface

Sinkholes, storm drains, manmade labs miles underground … this documentary, based on Robert Macfarlane’s book, burrows deep into some of humanity’s great unknowns

‘A new world is being born’: author Rebecca Solnit on the ‘slow revolution’ the far right cannot tolerate

It’s easy to focus on authoritarians and their petty victories. But zoom out and the picture is more encouraging, says the woman who popularised the term ‘mansplaining’, whether it’s in feminism, or the environment, or civil rights

Kurdish kitchens, baked bean alaska and Mexican soul: the best spring cookbooks for 2026 – review

These are the new titles for your kitchen shelf – plus a classic to dust off

Black Bag by Luke Kennard review – a campus comedy for our end times

Drawing on a real-life 1960s experiment, this story of an out-of-work actor paid to cover himself in a black leather bag fizzes with wit and invention