5 h. ago I read books every day — these are the 8 books to look out for in December

From new releases by well-known authors to hidden gems, here are some of the best books out in December that you'll want to add to your reading list

Politics

3 d. ago New film adaptation of Camus’s L’Étranger opens old colonial wounds

François Ozon’s handling of classic novel draws both praise and criticism, including from the author’s daughterMore than 80 years after it was published, Albert Camus’s L’Étranger remains one of the most widely read and fiercely contested French books in the world.Until now, few attempts have been made to adapt the novel, published in English as The Outsider, for television or cinema: it is considered problematic and divisive for its portrayal of France’s colonisation of Algeria. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago I’ve already read 42 books this year, but this is my standout favourite

This could be the best debut of the year

Politics

8 d. ago DVSA 'fault' rules learner drivers need to know before practical test

You need to pass your theory test before you book your practical - but before you get behind the wheel, read up on the latest guidance

Politics

9 d. ago Tim Dowling: my wife has always wanted to kick me out of book club. Now’s her chance

We have difffering views on my contribution to our book club: I see myself as its beating heart; my wife says I’m an interloperFor the first time in the history of book club, I can’t make it to book club. The scheduling conflict arises late in the day, which is galling because I’ve already read the book, and I can’t very well unread it.“You won’t be missed,” my wife says. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago ‘Agony uncle’ Bill Nighy leads rise of the celebrity podcast

Ill-advised, in which 75-year-old actor doles out advice and his innermost secrets, is fast becoming cult podcast of the yearBill Nighy is single. He has never read a self-help book, had no intention of becoming an actor and briefly went deaf after putting toilet paper in his ears to get to sleep. He has shutters, not curtains, in his bedroom, but has no idea what time he wakes up. If you invite him to a dinner party he will bring you exfoliating products, except don’t invite him, because he won’t come. He is good at making custard, but doesn’t cook because he lives alone “and it would be too sad”.The Surrey-born actor is as renowned for his suits as he is his singular ability to inhabit a role while remaining recognisably himself throughout. But almost 50 years into his career, Nighy is finally playing himself. A new podcast called Ill-advised casts the 75-year-old as an agony uncle, doling out advice and his innermost secrets to listeners from Italy to Mongolia to Scotland. The ac...

Politics

1 week ago I am spending my retirement at sea: What life is like living permanently on board a cruise ship

Former high school language teacher Sharon Lane has read no less than 18 books since making an ‘investment in her life’. She tells Amelia Neath about moving aboard Villa Vie’s ‘Odyssey’ full time for a life at sea

Politics

1 week ago Best Betting Sites: Top UK Online Bookmakers for November 2025

Compare over 60 licensed and regulated betting sites in the UK and read our reviews of the best online bookmakers for November 2025

Politics

2 w. ago Keep it short and find what you enjoy: how to start reading for fun

In a world full of distractions, it can be difficult to form a habit that needs attention. Experts advise on getting out of the rutMost of us read all day – texts, emails, menus, utility bills, social media captions and news stories. But fewer people are reading for fun.According to a 2022 report from the National Endowment for the Arts, 48.5% of US adults said they had read at least one book that year, down from 52.7% five years earlier, and 54.6% 10 years earlier. In the UK, a 2024 report found that half of UK adults do not regularly read for pleasure. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago She was a prison officer. He was a convicted rapist. How did she fall for him?

Cherrie-Ann Austin-Saddington was working in a men’s prison when she began a relationship with an inmate that would turn her, too, into a criminal. How do some of the most dangerous men in Britain get what they want – even behind bars?There was a moment in the summer of 2022 when 26-year-old Cherrie-Ann Austin-Saddington, a female prison officer in a men’s jail, had to make a choice. She was on her wing at HMP The Verne in Dorset, in the day room where inmates go to read books and newspapers, when a prisoner called Bradley Trengrove handed her a magazine. Concealed within its pages was a slip of paper with a number written on it – the number of his secret, illicit mobile phone. Under the watchful eye of the prison’s security cameras, Austin-Saddington had to decide what to do next.“I was thinking, do I report it? Do I not report it?” she says. “I wasn’t thinking, I’ll text him – that wasn’t in my head.” But she did not throw the piece of paper away. She kept it, and in the end decid...

Events

2 w. ago 14 best Christmas books for kids, read by parents and children

From heartwarming winter tales to festive audiobooks, these are the titles for little ones to read this December

Society

2 w. ago Celebrating literature is good – but I’m running out of patience with celebrity book clubs | Emma Brockes

Sarah Jessica Parker swept all before her at the Booker prize ceremony, but is fame the best way to encourage reading?In these turbulent times, we take small joys where we can find them. And this week we’ll take this: the spectacle of various literary people at the Booker prize award ceremony jamming themselves into photos alongside Sarah Jessica Parker. The actor – if you missed the long piece about it in the New York Times, or the many social media posts promoting Parker’s involvement – served as a judge for the Booker this year, a process that required her to read 153 books, some of them on the New York subway while being followed by a film crew. “Oh let me try!!!!” Parker had posted to Booker organisers last year, and for reasons that became obvious this week, they did.I know what you are going to say; that anything short of full-throated support for Parker’s adorable engagement with books in general and the Booker prize in particular is just unacceptable snobbery. There is noth...

Culture

2 w. ago Should I care what Sarah Jessica Parker thinks about books? | Emma Brockes

She swept all before her at the Booker prize ceremony, but I’m running out of patience with celebrity influence in publishingIn these turbulent times, we take small joys where we can find them. And this week we’ll take this: the spectacle of various literary people at the Booker prize award ceremony jamming themselves into photos alongside Sarah Jessica Parker. The actor – if you missed the long piece about it in the New York Times, or the many social media posts promoting Parker’s involvement – served as a judge for the Booker this year, a process that required her to read 153 books, some of them on the New York subway while being followed by a film crew. “Oh let me try!!!!” Parker had posted to Booker organisers last year, and for reasons that became obvious this week, they did.I know what you are going to say; that anything short of full-throated support for Parker’s adorable engagement with books in general and the Booker prize in particular is just unacceptable snobbery. There ...

Politics

3 w. ago ‘Most horrific death you could imagine’: the truth behind Netflix’s Death by Lightning

The streamer’s new historical drama looks back on the often forgotten story of US president James Garfield whose progressive political career was cut horribly shortThe descendants of James Garfield, the 20th US president, were proud of his life but rarely spoke of his death. “We knew what had happened, that he was shot in a train station,” says James Garfield III, his great-great-great grandson. “We read about the story in books but, in one way or another, we just glanced over it.”That changed in 2011 with the publication of Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, a book by Candice Millard that revived interest in Garfield’s unfinished life. Her work has now inspired a Netflix drama, Death by Lightning, starring Michael Shannon as the president and Matthew Macfadyen as the drifter who gunned him down. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Best bookish Christmas present ideas from someone who's read over 200 in 2025

With Christmas getting ever-closer, many family members and friends of book lovers will be wondering what to get them. This handy bookish gift guide should be able to help...

Politics

3 w. ago This is the one weapon that can save women from the violent monsters that prowl our streets. We must be allowed to carry it

Don't read a book. Don't listen to music or a podcast on headphones. Don't look a stranger in the eye or even close your eyes to rest. It could cost you your life...

Events

3 w. ago ‘I’m never surprised when I read about a woman murdering a man’: Helen Garner on her Baillie Gifford prize

Her first book outraged Australian critics – but now she’s scooped the UK’s top nonfiction prize. She talks about female anger, becoming cool at 82 – and why winning made her feel like a stunned mulletWhen Helen Garner was announced as the winner of the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction in London on Tuesday night, the 82-year-old Australian author was 16,000km away in Melbourne, watching the ceremony on a live stream at home on what was for her Wednesday morning. When the big moment came, she heard “the winner is ” – and then the feed froze. “We were going, ‘Oh God!’ Running around. We didn’t know what to do. The timing was like something in a comedy.” Congratulations immediately rushed in, which is how she knew she’d won the £50,000 (A$100,000) prize for How to End a Story, an 800-page collection of her astoundingly frank diaries, kept between 1978 and 1998.Garner is still grappling with her win when we speak a few hours later. “I’m a stunned mullet,” she says, sitting in her st...

Events

3 w. ago Best Betting Sites UK: Top Online Bookmakers for November 2025

Compare over 60 licensed and regulated betting sites in the UK and read our reviews of the best online bookmakers for November 2025

Politics

3 w. ago Debenhams drops £110 electric blanket to £32 that 'costs next to nothing' to run

'Ideal for winter nights or rainy miserable days when you just want to snuggle up and watch TV or read a book.'

Economics

4 w. ago Lynne Ramsay on pushing Jennifer Lawrence to the brink in her twisted motherhood drama: ‘I make films my way’

She burst on to the scene with Ratcatcher and terrified audiences with We Need to Talk About Kevin. The Scottish film-maker’s latest stars Hollywood darling Lawrence, but it doesn’t flinch from the dark side of family lifeSeveral years ago, Martin Scorsese read Die, My Love in his book club. The novel, by Argentinian author Ariana Harwicz, follows an unnamed woman who moves with her husband to the middle of nowhere in France. Isolated and frustrated, she battles the confines of marriage and motherhood. She introduces herself to the reader as “a nutcase”, as “someone beyond repair”. She sets fire to ants, swears at her child, complains of its “constant clucking and grousing”. She speaks the unspeakable: “I’m a mother, full stop. And I regret it, but I can’t even say that.”Scorsese subsequently sent the novel to Jennifer Lawrence’s production company. He was convinced that Lawrence could – should, must – play the mother. In turn, Lawrence and her producing partner, Justine Ciarrocchi,...

Events