Percival Everett and Rachel Kushner make the 2024 Booker prize shortlist

The six finalists include five books by women – the highest number of female writers shortlisted in the prize’s 55-year history

‘Corbyn had flown too close to the sun’: how Labour insiders battled the left and plotted the party’s path back to power

Exclusive extract from new book says Corbyn’s appearance at Glastonbury was a key moment in the party’s long way back to power. And as one anti-Corbyn group tried to build a moderate coalition, it also needed a credible leader …

Is the fizz up to Edith Wharton’s standards? The joys of launching a book

A party supported by pals who made it through rush hour rain was appropriate for an anthology celebrating female friendship

Early version of Lord of the Flies with different beginning to go on display

Manuscript that begins with boys evacuated amid nuclear war is part of exhibition marking 70 years since novel’s publication

UK English curricula should focus on ‘inclusive and diverse’ stories, author says

Ex-children’s laureate Malorie Blackman says no student should feel English is irrelevant because they do not see themselves reflected in the literature

2024 Wainwright prizes are ‘heartwarming’ tribute to a new generation of nature writers

Top nature writing honour goes to Late Light by Michael Malay, which explores modern Britain through the ‘unloved’ lives of eels, moths, crickets and mussels

The Guardian view on public libraries: these vital spaces provide much more than books

Editorial: Offering everything from coding clubs to company, they are more essential than ever as other services vanish

Undercover women: the story of how Victorian female police cracked crime

Although women weren’t allowed to become police officers until 1917, a new book explores their vital role as ‘searchers’

‘I thought of the church as a friend and it slapped me in the face’: historian Diarmaid MacCulloch on the Church of England’s hypocrisy

The award-winning author, ecclesiastical historian and church-goer on his incendiary new book about sex and the church, challenging centuries of self-serving homophobia, fakery and abuse. He is primed for the backlash…

Anne Fine: children should be allowed to learn online instead of going to school

Former children’s laureate says rather than punishing absenteeism the UK’s education system should change

‘A shell of the place it used to be’: readers on the importance of libraries – and their fragile future

As sources of inspiration, havens from noise or social support service, council-run libraries have had a positive impact on lives all over the UK

Salman Rushdie’s knife attack memoir longlisted for Baillie Gifford prize

Books by Richard Flanagan, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Rachel Cockerell and Jonathan Blitzer also in running for £50,000 nonfiction award

Jack Reacher would not exist without Birmingham’s libraries, says writer

Lee Child says childhood visits to city’s libraries helped him to create protagonist as he laments proposed closures

Touch review – unashamedly emotional love story travels back to the 1960s

Baltasar Kormákur’s beautifully shot romance sees Kristófer try to track down Miko, a lifetime after their youthful love affair is unexpectedly cut short

Silent Sherlock Holmes film to be screened for first time since 1922 release

The Golden Pince-Nez features Eille Norwood as the detective and has been restored by the BFI national archive