‘I had a year to write it from scratch’: the 2025 Booker finalists on the stories behind their novels

A newspaper report about a missing girl, the memory of a midwinter emergency … Susan Choi, Andrew Miller, David Szalay and others on what inspired their shortlisted books

Graham Norton: ‘The Bell Jar changed how I felt about books’

The TV presenter and author on discovering the beauty of Charles Dickens and why John Fowles put him off writing for 30 years

Geoff Dyer: ‘I don’t go to books for comfort; I have a memory foam pillow for that’

The author on Marxist revelations, returning to Don DeLillo and reading all of Elizabeth Taylor

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

Marian Keyes: ‘Books have one shot to impress me and if you miss, you miss’

The Irish author on the allure of Elizabeth Jane Howard, the brilliance of Bernardine Evaristo – and why she won’t be revisiting Philip Roth

The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece review – Tom Hanks’s ambitious, myth-busting novel

The actor’s tale about the creation of a fantasy film captures the humdrum of Hollywood but lacks his on-screen ability to breathe life into characters

AM Homes: ‘Richard Powers is the American novelist for the 21st century’

The author on identifying with Holden Caulfield and how Margaret Atwood made her a feminist writer

The Singularities by John Banville review – theoretical physics meets playful storytelling

The author’s vividly realised new novel uses a country house setting to explore scientific puzzles and the nature of reality

Neil Gaiman: ‘Narnia made me want to write, to do that magic trick’

The American Gods and Good Omens author on his friendship with Gene Wolfe, crying over Diana Wynne Jones and falling under the spell of CS Lewis

Neverending stories: the rise and fall of the literary saga

Robert McCrum: Once upon a time, trilogies and multi-part sagas were a staple of literary fiction. Why have they fallen out of favour? And is Robert Harris's Lustrum set to change all that?

Times may change, but not the writing life

Robert McCrum: Three news items remind us how little literary life changes from age to age

Kinky Friedman’s political journey – the outlaw turns sheriff

Daniel Kalder: Country singer/author Kinky Friedman should take note. Writers who enter politics have an inauspicious history, with almost no exceptions

Hilary Mantel and the ‘mystery’ of the Booker prize odds

Charlotte Higgins: The story about the Mantel and the Booker prize odds is crashingly unsurprising. I just wish I'd laid my bet last week

The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón review – uneven but fascinating

Zafón’s sequel to The Shadow of the Wind is the fastest-selling book in Spanish publishing history

Cold comfort

Review: Cold Earth by Sarah MossAn apocalyptic chiller presses all the fright buttons. By Jane Smiley