The story behind the spy stories: show reveals secrets of John le Carré’s craft

How author researched his plots and letters from Alec Guinness feature in Oxford exhibition

‘I’m going to write about all of it’: author Chris Kraus on success, drugs and I Love Dick

A decade after her debut became a cult hit, the US author talks about the true crime that inspired her latest novel, #MeToo overreach and being married to an addict

Colm Tóibín: Why I set up a press to publish Nobel winner László Krasznahorkai

The Irish novelist discovered the Hungarian writer two decades ago, and was excited by the verbal pyrotechnics of a rule-breaking storyteller

Heather Rose: ‘My ancestors escaped the French Revolution – that really got me, even as a child’

The Tasmanian author reflects on the dramatic family stories that have shaped her new novel, on a reviving bushwalk to her favourite tree

The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup

All That We See Or Seem by Ken Liu; When There Are Wolves Again by EJ Swift; The White Octopus Hotel by Alexandra Bell; Darker Days by Thomas Olde Heuvelt; Remain by Nicholas Sparks with M Night Shyamalan

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen audiobook review – an immersive all-star dramatisation

Actors Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Bill Nighy and Marisa Abela are among the cast in a pacy adaptation that retains Austen’s sharp plotting and comic precision

Seed by Bri Lee – this propulsive, fun eco-thriller is the novelist’s strongest yet

Set in a secret Antarctic seed bank, Seed is a novel of friction and paranoia, of weaponised mistrust and cloistered desire, narrated by a misogynist antinatalist

Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation review – revisiting the legacy of a counterculture classic

Wild-spirited but laced with dim views on race and women, On the Road is due a reckoning. This elegant talking-head doc works best when its unpicking is most forensic

‘A sparkle that extends beyond fiction’: readers on what Jilly Cooper meant to them

Fans pay tribute to the author’s escapist tales, her real-life largesse and her unexpected passions

Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard to chair Women’s prize for fiction in 2026

Gillard reveals reading fiction is her most treasured pastime and looks forward to working with ‘a joyful panel of judges’

Ivan Klíma obituary

Czech novelist and playwright whose work was banned under communism

The Decadence by Leon Craig review – queer haunted house tale fails to chill

Privileged university friends retreat to the countryside, in a gothic novel mostly made up of vibes

The Devil Book by Asta Olivia Nordenhof review – a Danish series that burns with purpose

This incandescent novel takes in lockdown, the devil, bad investments, erotic thrills and the deadly fire on the Scandinavian Star ferry

‘Jilly Cooper was the absolute queen’: writers pay tribute to the beloved author

The writer was an astute observer of English class – and a champion of complicated female heroines

Elizabeth Harrower wrote some of Australia’s best novels then disappeared for decades. Even she wasn’t sure why

A new biography unravels one of Australia’s great literary mysteries and comeback stories, and teases out details of the troubled early years that informed the author’s devastating studies of domestic despots