Ben Affleck drops out of directing The Batman
The actor will remain as producer and star of the Warner Bros caped crusader movie due to be released next year
Istanbul bookshop that transports young Syrians back home
Founder of city’s first Arabic bookshop lets children read and escape the isolation of refugee life
Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes – review
This history of the queen of cities through the ages is important, entertaining and impressively researched
Paul Beatty: ‘For me, Trump’s America has always existed’
Booker prize winner says president’s rise is not a shock and race relations have improved very little, even under Obama
Details of plot to murder archbishop Óscar Romero revealed in new book
Matt Eisenbrandt’s Assassination of a Saint details the plot to murder the El Salvadorian archbishop that sparked a civil war and offers an explanation
Omar Saif Ghobash: ‘These rock star clerics on Twitter need to reach out’
With his book Letters to a Young Muslim, the UAE ambassador to Russia suggests a new way to view Islam
Xiaolu Guo: ‘Rage and bitterness sent me into the world of literature’
The writer and film-maker on the hardships of growing up in communist China and the shock of discovering artistic freedom
From Marilynne Robinson to Richard Ford, six writers in search of Trump’s America
Six giants of American literature reveal how they are responding to a transformed society
The Guardian view on the Dictionary of National Biography: choosing who we are
Editorial: Only five non-white people of national importance died in 2013? Really? So what about Nelson Mandela?
The Divided States: Trump’s inauguration and how democracy has failed
Donald Trump and his demonisation of minorities are not the exception in US history – they are its logical conclusion. Pankaj Mishra examines the dream of the multiracial democracy, and America’s failure to realise it
The call of the bells is a call to a moral awakening
Loose canon: For centuries, bells have served as prompts for us to become a better version of ourselves. But their days appear numbered
Hurt hate speech peddler Milo Yiannopoulos by mocking his idiocy
The best response to serial irritant Milo Yiannopoulos is not be enraged but to leave his new book on the shelf
A Florence Diary by Diana Athill review – the quiet after the storm
This postwar trip across Europe in the late 1940s captures the wonder of a world slowly coming to terms with peace
Why Marlene Dietrich’s witty marginalia only add to her appeal
Coleridge and Joe Orton famously scribbled in the margins of books – so the acting great is in good company
Publishing Milo Yiannopoulos’ book is wrong. My magazine is fighting back
Simon & Schuster has given the Breitbart writer a $250,000 deal – so I decided the Chicago Review of Books would not cover any of its authors in 2017