A night with the Murdle squad… and hundreds of crime writers
Can a visit to the Bristol CrimeFest – this year featuring GT Karber, creator of the whodunnit series Murdle – help pin down why the crime genre is booming?
In brief: Hey, Zoey; You Could Make This Place Beautiful; The Light Eaters – review
A thoughtful meditation on love and loneliness via an AI-based sex doll; an outstanding debut memoir of infidelity’s aftermath; and a passionate and insightful botanical study
Long Island by Colm Tóibín review – the sequel to Brooklyn is a masterclass in subtlety and intelligence
This follow-up, set 20 years on, kicks off with a marriage in crisis and skilfully conveys how blind we are to our own motivations
Sam Taylor: ‘Translating is like X-raying a book. You get a deep tissue read’
The US-based writer and translator on his new novel set in 1930s Vienna, his deep connection with the authors he has worked with and why he always returns to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History
Netflix’s One Hundred Years of Solitude brings fame to Gabriel García Márquez’s Colombian hometown
Locals hope TV adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude will bring new life to Aracataca, birthplace of author’s magical realism
On my radar: Claire Messud’s cultural highlights
The novelist on the continuing relevance of Ibsen, the joyful quilt art of Faith Ringgold and where to find British scotch eggs in New York
Books for a better world: as chosen by Lenny Henry, Geri Halliwell-Horner, Andrew O’Hagan and others
Game-changing books that offer hope, as recommended by speakers at this year’s Hay festival, including Theresa May, Tom Holland, Helen Garner and Jon Ronson
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
Hunted by Abir Mukherjee; Bonehead by Mo Hayder; When We Were Silent by Fiona McPhillips; The Mystery of the Crooked Man by Tom Spencer
Hari Kunzru: ‘I am just as enchanted by The Great Gatsby now as when I first read it as an A-level student’
The British novelist on rereading the classics, his teenage love of outsiders, and discovering the brilliance of Anita Brookner
Author Coco Mellors: ‘I needed from the book something that I needed in my life – a sense of hope’
Blue Sisters, the novelist’s follow-up to her debut Cleopatra and Frankenstein, focuses on death and addiction. She explains how she found her way to a more optimistic story
Henry Henry by Allen Bratton review – a Shakespearean tangle of hedonism and duty
A compelling debut digs into the conflicting emotions at the heart of an aristocratic family in 2010s England
All Fours by Miranda July review – larger than life
The author and film-maker explores dance, desire, mortality and transcendence on a wild autofictional journey
My First Book by Honor Levy review – extremely online
Frustration drives in an anxious Zoomer’s tour of the web
Long Island by Colm Tóibín review – happy ever after?
The Irish novelist is at the height of his powers with a sequel to Brooklyn, set twenty years later
A life in quotes: Alice Munro
Writer known as ‘Canadian Chekhov’ captured the desire and darkness of ordinary life in rural Canada, particularly for women