27 h. ago Books of the Month: What to read this September, from Arundhati Roy’s searing memoir to Ian McEwan’s sci

Martin Chilton shares his September reading highlights

Politics

45 h. ago From a new Thomas Pynchon novel to a memoir by Margaret Atwood: the biggest books of the autumn

Essays from Zadie Smith; Wiki founder Jimmy Wales on how to save the internet; a future-set novel by Ian McEwan; a new case for the Slow Horses - plus memoirs from Kamala Harris and Paul McCartney all among this season’s highlightsHelm by Sarah HallFaber, out now Hall is best known for her glittering short stories: this is the novel she’s been working on for two decades. Set in Cumbria’s Eden valley, it tells the story of the Helm – the only wind in the UK to be given a name – from its creation at the dawn of time up to the current degradation of the climate. It’s a huge, millennia-spanning achievement, spotlighting characters from neolithic shamans to Victorian meteorologists to present-day pilots. Continue reading...

Culture

5 d. ago Sally Morris picks the best of this month's kid's books:  OH DEAR, LOOK WHAT I GOT! by Michael Rosen Illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, UNFAIRIES by Huw Aaron, SMALL WONDER by Ross Montgomery

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Politics

7 d. ago Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy review – brave and absorbing

In this remarkable memoir, the Booker-winning novelist looks back on her bittersweet relationship with her mercurial motherTwelve minutes into an interview with Allen Ginsberg for the BBC’s Face to Face, Jeremy Isaacs asks him about the extraordinary long poem he wrote about his mother: “In Kaddish, you mourn your mother. What was the effect on you of living with a mother who was mad?” Ginsberg’s answer, mildly inflected by a laugh, is: “It gave me a great sort of tolerance for eccentric behaviour.”Arundhati Roy, whose memoir is partly an account of her life with her mother Mary Roy, might recognise this insight. Arguably, all mothers appear to their children as mad: madness here meaning an unbounded force, at odds with what society imagines normal parenting to consist of. The manifestations of this madness are as disparate as those of love, and these two aspects – the abnormal, the overbearing, and the protective, the nurturing – can be, in our mothers, intimately intertwined (“She...

Politics

9 d. ago Trump revokes Kamala Harris’ secret service protection, reversing Biden order

Harris is set to begin a promotional tour connected with her forthcoming book next month

Politics

9 d. ago Trump cancels Kamala Harris’ secret service protection reversing a Biden order

Harris is set to begin a promotional tour connected with her forthcoming book next month

Politics

9 d. ago Trump cancels Kamala Harris’ secret service protection, reversing Biden order

Harris is set to begin a promotional tour connected with her forthcoming book next month

Politics

1 week ago Kirkus Prize finalists include Angela Flournoy, Kiran Desai and Megha Majumdar

Novels by Angela Flournoy, Kiran Desai and Megha Majumdar, along with a memoir by Arundhati Roy, are finalists for the Kirkus Prize

Politics

1 week ago Mark Wright shares adorable new pic of baby Palma as he makes plea to Oxford University

Mark Wright has shared an adorable snap of his five-month-old daughter, Palma, appearing to read a book, as he jokingly asked Oxford University at what age do they accept applications

Politics

1 week ago A Truce That Is Not Peace by Miriam Toews review – a searingly intimate memoir

One of Canada’s most admired writers delivers a triumphant meditation on loss, literature and the unspoken Asking himself “Why I write”, George Orwell gave four reasons: aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, political purpose and sheer egoism. Asked the same question ahead of a literary conference in Mexico City, Miriam Toews mentions the teenage letters she sent from Europe to her sister Marjorie (Marj or M as she calls her) as the reason she became a writer. Sorry, that won’t do for an answer, she’s told. Try again.In a frenetic household set-up in Toronto, keeping an eye on her mother one moment, entertaining her grandchildren the next and warding off angry neighbours in between, she struggles to get her act together and makes a to-do list: “Wind Museum. Deranged skunk. North-west quadrant with ex. Conversación in Mexico City.” The skunk has distemper and keeps getting trapped in the window well. The Wind Museum is the collection she’d love to create, commemorating ...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘Nightmare’ for fans a month out from first ball hurts Women’s Cricket World Cup | Mrinal Asija

Late venue changes and delayed ticket sales leave the ODI tournament in India and Sri Lanka at serious risk of disgruntled fans and empty standsSue Kitchen has her flights and hotels booked for next month’s Women’s Cricket World Cup in India. Her excitement, however, has gradually dissolved into anxiousness as she waits for news of the match tickets going on sale. The ICC insists this will be the biggest Women’s World Cup yet. But with just over a month to go, travelling fans are grappling with last-minute surprises, and the players are preparing to make their way to unfamiliar, uninspiring venues.In a Facebook group of women’s cricket supporters, Kitchen describes the planning process for her upcoming trip from England as a “nightmare”. Her sentiments are shared by other fans outside India, many of whom have already entered the ticket ballot for the 2026 Women’s T20 World Cup in England. Some have even abandoned their travel plans for India due to the logistical challenges. Continu...

Politics

2 w. ago Arundhati Roy on her fugitive childhood: ‘My knees were full of scars and cuts – a sign of my wild, imperfect, fatherless life’

When war broke out between India and China, the author and her brother were taken by their mother on a chaotic journey from hill station squat to an eccentric household in Kerala. Would they ever find a safe space?A teacher was what my mother had always wanted to be, what she was qualified to be. During the years she was married and living with our father, who had a job as an assistant manager on a remote tea estate in Assam, the dream of pursuing a career of any kind atrophied and fell away. It was rekindled (as nightmare more than dream) when she realised that her husband, like many young men who worked on lonely tea estates, was hopelessly addicted to alcohol.When war broke out between India and China in October 1962, women and children were evacuated from border districts. We moved to Calcutta. Once we got there, my mother decided that she would not return to Assam. From Calcutta we travelled across the country, all the way south to Ootacamund – Ooty – a small hill station in th...

Politics

2 w. ago We're about to move house and pay £93,000 stamp duty: Should we pull out on rumours tax could be axed?

We're due to exchange on 30 September - so it was extremely stressful to read about a potential overhaul of stamp duty rules in the Autumn Budget in October.

Economics

2 w. ago JK Rowling backs writer John Boyne and brands his trans critics 'tinpot tyrants' after annual LGBT literary prize was axed over his nomination

John Boyne, 54, who is best known for writing The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, made the longlist for the Polari Prize this month for his book Earth.

Politics

3 w. ago The Expansion Project by Ben Pester review – surreal workplace satire

A father searches for his missing daughter at a business park, only to become a living ghost in a corporate nightmare“I knew she wouldn’t leave the floor, but still I felt the slow panic coming on. A supermarket form of dread – you expect to find the lost child in the next aisle, but the next aisle is empty, so you push on to the next [until] there are not enough aisles left to give you hope.”Tom Crowley’s eight-year-old daughter Hen (not her real name, but also not short for Henrietta) has gone missing, somewhere in the Piranesi-esque corridors of Tom’s workplace, Capmeadow Business Park. It’s bring your daughter to work day, and it’s not the first time that morning that he’s lost her. But this feels different – to Tom, and to the reader, who might briefly suspect that they are in a contemporary update of Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Inside quaint historic town dubbed Scotland’s version of Stars Hollow where books outnumber people 250 to one

Watch footage of the historic Scottish town, which is preparing to host its annual book festival next month - with speakers including Nicola Surgeon and Sir John Kay.

Culture