Once dismissed as frivolous, ‘romancelandia’ is getting political
Many in the romance book community have rallied voters through podcasts and phone banks – and joined school boards
Ferdia Lennon: ‘Tolstoy made me more forgiving of myself and other people’
The prize-winning author on a masterclass from Hilary Mantel, rereading James Joyce, and coming back to Wuthering Heights
Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami review – humanity’s future
The spectre of extinction hangs over the Japanese writer’s brilliantly strange and unsettling vision of evolution
Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan review – a fresh take on modern love
The author of Bellies explores contemporary questions of sex, love, relationship etiquette and gender identity
Lazarus Man by Richard Price review – hard times in Harlem
The collapse of a brownstone building sparks this panoramic view of life in a New York neighbourhood, from a writer on The Wire
The Guardian view on rewriting classics: what the Dickens?
Editorial: Retellings of novels like Huckleberry Finn and David Copperfield help to keep the canon alive
Fiction to look out for in 2025
An epic family saga, new novels from Natasha Brown and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, plus a David Szalay masterpiece… the coming year looks good
From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Pope Francis: the books to look forward to in 2025
New work from Zadie Smith, a memoir from Bill Gates, plus the third instalment in Rebecca Yarros’s romantasy series - here’s the biggest fiction and nonfiction for the year ahead
That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack review – the joys of country music
A shy man leads a solitary existence until a young girl – and a cat – inveigle their way into his apparently contented life in this big-hearted tale
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie audiobook review – a starry whodunnit
Peter Dinklage’s resonant turn as Hercule Poirot gives the beloved writer’s debut a charismatic reboot
Rushdie’s Satanic Verses returns to Indian bookshops after 36 years
Book banned since 1988 is ‘selling out’ after import bar was overturned due to missing paperwork
Darkenbloom by Eva Menasse review – Holocaust secrets unearthed
Based on a massacre in an Austrian town at the end of the second world war, this thoughtful novel confronts the long shadow of Nazism
Alive in the Merciful Country by AL Kennedy – activism and betrayal
A primary school teacher navigates lockdown in an ambitious novel that asks potent questions about abuses of state and personal power
And He Shall Appear by Kate van der Borgh review – enjoyable dark academia
Whispers of the the occult, class rivalry and Elizabethan alchemy fuel a glamorous debut set in a Cambridge college
Tuesday Morning, Kentish Town: a short story by the award-winning author Kevin Barry
In this exclusive tale four generations of an expat Irish family share a London house, where they gossip and drink and dream as Christmas draws near