Mary Beard blocked by No 10 as British Museum trustee ‘for pro-Europe views’

Classicist’s pro-Remain stance led to Downing Street ‘veto’ – but a trustee place is now to be offered regardless

Rishi Sunak: reality check for a brand stirred up over a cuppa

What with the chancellor’s brew-up and Simon Armitage’s new national poetry centre, Yorkshire is trending. As is Charlotte Awbery

Novelist Marian Keyes to headline Primadonna literary festival

Celebration of female writers will have alternative wedding chapel where women can ‘marry’ themselves

Simon Armitage plans national ‘headquarters’ for poetry in Leeds

Poet laureate lays out ideas to give the country an official home for the practice, in line with other ‘national art forms’

‘Being poor is not inevitable or due to personal flaws. I know, I’ve been there’

Extreme inequality and poverty is caused by political choices, so we need a new narrative to challenge the stereotypes

Rathbones Folio prize: Zadie Smith makes female-dominated shortlist

Eight books in contention for £30,000 award that has never been won by a woman include Zadie Smith’s story collection Grand Union and poet Fiona Benson’s Vertigo & Ghost

BBC to film series based on Sally Rooney’s hit debut novel

Conversations with Friends will follow Rooney’s Normal People that will air in April

Malorie Blackman: time is right for BBC Noughts and Crosses drama

Author of dystopian series hopes TV adaptation will open up more nuanced debate on race in UK

Comic capers in Bologna, magic mushrooms and farewell to the fridge

Continuing our new series, our writer reflects on the beauty and intelligence of graphic novels

Alas, poor Hamnet: spotlight falls on Shakespeare’s tragic only son

Maggie O’Farrell is the latest modern writer to explore the mysterious life and early death of Hamnet Shakespeare

Carnegie Medal longlist gives classics a fresh spin

From a modern Moby-Dick to a stepsister’s take on Cinderella, the UK’s top children’s book prize highlights stories of ‘hope, discovery and understanding’

Bradford puts money on libraries to boost city’s health

£700,000 could be diverted from Yorkshire council’s wellbeing budget to offset library cuts

Rural idyll where Ancient Mariner met Kubla Khan saved for nation

Mystery buyer is snapping up the home where Coleridge and Wordsworth composed some of their greatest works

‘I worked for a payday lender but now I’m a comic book artist’

Rees Finlay, 27, on changing careers – and how his autism diagnosis altered his life

Bookshop burglary foiled after prosecco distracts raiders

Two men who broke into London bookshop Gay’s the Word were caught by police after raid became a drinking session