3 h. ago The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith review – a terrific, tightly plotted romp

With four murder inquiries in play, JK Rowling’s eighth Cormoran Strike novel avoids the page-padding longeurs of previous volumes – but will he finally tell Robin how he feels about her?In his popular BBC series Just One Thing, the late Michael Mosley made the case for resistance training. Lifting weights, he explained, not only builds stronger muscles, it also boosts the immune system, maintains a healthy heart and improves brain function. Best of all, it can be done in your kitchen, using ordinary domestic items: pints of milk in place of dumbbells, say, or squats wearing a backpack full of books.Anyone intending to use Robert Galbraith’s Strike novels for this purpose would be advised to seek the advice of a GP. The Hallmarked Man may not be the heftiest of the eight so far – it does not even make it into the top three – but it still clocks in at a cool 912 pages. Galbraith’s tendency to whopperdom has in the past elicited a fair amount of griping from critics, me among them, wh...

Events

27 h. 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

35 h. ago Teenagers with painful periods ‘more likely to suffer chronic pain as adults’

Researchers suggest the link between menstrual pain as a teenager and adult pain may be down to changes in the nervous system.

Politics

3 d. ago ‘Literature can be a form of resistance’: Lea Ypi talks to Elif Shafak about writing in the age of demagogues

The Albanian author of Free and Turkish novelist discuss the rise of populism, censorship – and how today’s conflicts all come from the unresolved trauma of the pastLea Ypi’s prize-winning memoir, Free, detailed the experience of growing up in Albania both before and after communist rule. Her new book, Indignity, reconstructs the life of her grandmother, who arrived in Tirana from Salonica as a young woman and became closely involved with the country’s political life. She currently holds the Ralph Miliband chair in politics and philosophy at the London School of Economics. The Turkish writer Elif Shafak is author of more than 20 books, both nonfiction and fiction, including the Booker-shortlisted novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World and, most recently, There Are Rivers in the Sky. When the pair talked over videocall, Ypi travelling in India and Shafak at home in London, their conversation ranged over the threats of censorship and the rise of populism, the challenge...

Politics

3 d. ago All the hidden Easter eggs in Thursday Murder Club including a subtle reference to one of Helen Mirren's most famous roles and celebrity cameos

The film, an adaptation of the first book in a line of novels that have since become one of the most successful detective series of all time, was released in UK cinemas on 22 August.

Events

5 d. ago Seascraper by Benjamin Wood review – a story that sings on the page

A young shrimp fisher’s horizons are broadened by the arrival of a stranger in this atmospheric Booker-listed taleYou don’t think you need a novella about a folk-singing shrimp fisher living with his mother on a fictional stretch of isolated coast until you read Benjamin Wood’s Booker-longlisted fifth novel, Seascraper. Wood conjures wonders from this unlikely material in a tale so richly atmospheric you can almost taste the tang of brine and inhale the sea fog.As unexpected as his previous four books – which range from a campus intrigue (The Bellwether Revivals) to a sensitive study of a Glaswegian painter (The Ecliptic) – Seascraper follows the daily trials of Tom Flett, a “shanker” who scrapes the sand for its yield at low tide with his trusty horse and wagon, risking his life in a job that is simultaneously boring and dangerous. Tom is clearly in the Hardyesque tradition of unworldly young men who tend the land or work with their hands (Gabriel Oak, Jude Fawley), and it’s this t...

Events

8 d. ago Spinal Tap II, Julia Roberts and Paul Thomas Anderson: the best films of autumn 2025

An original Alan Bennett screenplay, a classy star turn for George Clooney and a Bruce Springsteen biopic are all on their way to the big screen• See the rest of our unmissable autumn arts preview picks hereAll release dates are UK and subject to changeComic book author and novelist Charlie Huston adapts his own cult bestseller of the same title, Darren Aronofsky directs – and this comedy certainly signals a shift in tone after his last movie, body-image tragedy The Whale. Austin Butler stars as ex-baseball-player Hank Thompson who gets mixed up in the seedy underbelly of crime in 90s New York. • 29 August Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Children and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

A huge brolly; sibling revelry; poetic Paris; first aid for youngsters; Regency blackmail; blackly comic YA fiction and moreA Totally Big Umbrella by Sarah Crossan, illustrated by Rebecca Cobb, Walker, £12.99Rain ruins all Tallulah’s favourite things until she finds a really huge umbrella – but it’s so big it holds her back. Could there be worse things than getting wet? Enchanting and imaginative, this gentle, playful picture book addresses an anxious child’s need to find control.The Elephant and the Piano by Colette Hiller, illustrated by Nabila Adani, Magic Cat, £7.99Short-tempered and destructive, Bonti the elephant is all alone – until the music of a piano reaches him. A luminous, touching picture book, based on a true story. Continue reading...

Culture

1 week ago The Thursday Murder Club review – Richard Osman bestseller provides solid, star

There’s much to enjoy in this adaptation of Osman’s ingenious book, with Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie and Pierce Brosnan as the senior-citizen X-MenRichard Osman’s phenomenal bestseller from 2020 was an ingenious, accessible, good-natured book, which helped rebrand the English detective novel as “cosy crime”, started a celeb-copycat publishing trend and, being about four elderly people in a retirement community rising above ageist condescension to solve crimes, spoke eloquently to the shut-in frustrations and escapist yearnings of the Covid age.Now it has been adapted as a funny and likable, if slightly bland, comedy-drama for Netflix, which as one character amusingly and pre-emptively comments, feels just like a Sunday teatime TV crime drama. There is nothing new about these nostalgist leanings: Agatha Christie has after all been a solid film and TV export for more than half a century. Screenwriters Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote adapt the novel and director Chris Colu...

Events

1 week ago Can't get through a novel without losing focus? Read our expert guide to improving your concentration span in five easy steps: HARRIET GREEN

It's official: our concentration spans are shrinking. Bookworm turned doomscroller Harriet Green laments the lost pleasure of novel reading

Politics

1 week ago Australian novel attracts controversy over fictionalised depiction of gay codebreaker Alan Turing

Nick Croydon, the CEO of QBD Books, has faced criticism for his thriller The Turing ProtocolA novel written by a prominent book industry figure in which persecuted gay man Alan Turing has sex with a woman and fathers a child has been criticised online for its portrayal of the codebreaker.The Turing Protocol was released in July and was written by Nick Croydon, the CEO of QBD Books, the largest Australian-owned bookshop chain, where the book is being heavily promoted. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Actress Michelle Williams confirms birth of baby daughter via surrogate

The actress has three children under the age of five, as well as a teenage daughter.

Politics

2 w. ago After a stint on Broadway, PATERSON JOSEPH had to work on a building site

Joseph is best known for appearing in hit TV shows such as Casualty. The 61-year-old has also written a novel and a children's book.

Politics

2 w. ago An expert reveals the five easy ways you can improve your focus and concentration span

It's official: our concentration spans are shrinking. Bookworm turned doomscroller Harriet Green laments the lost pleasure of novel reading

Politics

2 w. ago Major crackdown on fake Labubu dolls: Urgent warning over 'unsafe' counterfeit collectables flooding UK market with thousands of toys seized across Britain

Labubu dolls have become a global sensation amongst children, teenagers and even the like of major celebrities from Kim Kardashian to Rihanna.

Events

2 w. ago The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar review – whimsical fantasy in a kingdom long, long ago

In this first adult novel from the acclaimed children’s author, an immortal magician returns to tell the story of a royal court where he cast his spells some 500 years beforeThe American author Louis Sachar’s most celebrated book, 1998’s YA novel Holes, was a huge word-of-mouth success on both sides of the Atlantic. Its short, punchy chapters tell the story of plump, hapless Stanley Yelnats, sent to a summer camp for wayward boys, where a terrifying Warden has peculiar ideas about character reformation. The 5ft-deep holes the boys are required to dig turn out to have a surprising purpose. Shifts of time, register and perspective render a simple premise mesmerisingly intricate. It has peril, love, crime, wickedness, redemption and friendship in, well, spades.A quarter of a century later, Sachar has written his first supposedly adult novel, in which many of the same ingredients reappear. A man “dressed like a typical American tourist”, but with an odd habit of storing cake crumbs in t...

Politics

3 w. ago Tiny Bookshop review – a truly cosy escape made with readers in mind

PC; Neoludic GamesReal titles from Shakespeare to John Green line the shelves of your seaside shop in a rhythmic, mellow management simulator worth relaxing intoIt is a rare thing in my experience that a resource management simulator, set in a retail or service environment, can strike the precise tone and pace that manages to evoke both interest and relaxation. As a player who previously worked as a bookseller, and currently is a novelist, I am poised to be extremely stressed out by a game set in a mobile bookshop. However, Tiny Bookshop is crafted with such care and balance that I found myself losing hours to the gentle pace and tiny puzzles and sheer escapism of the world it presents.The setup is simple, and one that is common to many games in the post Stardew Valley era of “cosy” games. You throw in your old life and open a shop selling tiny things you are passionate about to a bustling little community full of interesting characters who you progressively develop relationships wi...

Politics

3 w. ago Married care worker guilty of inciting boy at children's home into sexual relationship

Lindy Leah 'fell in love' with a teenage boy living at the children’s home where she worked as deputy manager.

Society

3 w. ago Married mum 'fell in love' with boy in children's home and asked him 'for love bite'

Lindy Leah was said to have 'fallen in love with' a teenage resident of the children's home where she was employed as deputy manager

Society

3 w. ago ‘Unimaginably rare’ first edition of The Hobbit sells at auction for £43,000

Only a few hundred from the original 1,500 copy print run of Tolkien’s masterpiece are thought to still existA rare first edition of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit that was found during a house clearance has sold at auction for £43,000.Bought by a private collector in the UK, the book is one of 1,500 original copies of the seminal fantasy novel that were published in 1937. Of those, only “a few hundred are believed to still remain”, according to the auction house Auctioneum, which discovered the novel without a dust cover on a bookcase at a home in Bristol. Continue reading...

Economics