12 h. 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

13 h. ago Why do stinging nettles sting and how big are shooting stars? The kids’ quiz

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes Submit a questionMolly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and the new Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book. Continue reading...

Events

26 h. ago Readers' letters: Deluded gender activists need to be brought to book

A reader hits out at the National Library of Scotland’s decision to pull The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht from its ‘Dear Library’ centenary exhibition

Politics

3 d. ago A moment that changed me: I resolved to reduce my screen time – and it was a big mistake

I was looking for liberation from the apps, but quitting them only made my life harder and turned me into a man obsessedI unlocked my iPhone screen at the precise moment that my weekly screen time notification appeared – accidentally dismissing it before I could take a screenshot – and promptly erupted into a rage. I had spent an excruciating week resolutely not looking at my phone, part of a month-long effort to whittle my daily screen time down from more than four hours a day to less than an hour, with the hope of improving my mental wellbeing (and possibly carving out a career as an inspirational speaker). But my efforts felt futile without being able to post evidence online about how offline I had become. I frantically Googled how to retrieve notifications (you cannot) and – briefly – considered re-creating my screen time report in Photoshop.Over the past decade or two, my efforts at self-improvement have taken various forms: the year where I read 105 books; the period during wh...

Politics

4 d. ago These are my 5 favourite short books to get out of a reading rut

From Claire Keegan's ‘Small Things Like These’ to Vincenzo Latronico's ‘Perfection’, these novellas are less than 200 pages

Politics

4 d. ago David Squires on the Premier League soap opera’s grand return

Our cartoonist on the wacky plotlines and big characters to look out for as the new season beginsBuy one of David’s cartoon in our Print ShopDavid’s latest book, Chaos in the Box: buy it now Continue reading...

Politics

4 d. ago Nicola Sturgeon book: 7 bombshell revelations we learned from reading ex

Chris McCall, the Record's deputy political editor, reviews the most eagerly anticipated Scottish politics book of the year.

Events

5 d. ago Which books will Nationals English pupils read 2025? The Scottish texts teachers can choose

Scotland’s school reading list recently got a bit of a refresh 📚

Politics

5 d. ago Palestinians don’t need a state. We need justice | Ahmed Moor

In the midst of a genocide, the Palestinians are best served by abandoning any effort to attain self-rule in the Occupied TerritoriesThere are few things the pro-Israel side gets right. But on one point – the Palestinians’ rejection of two states – they’ve been more-or-less correct. For me, and many others, the fundamental injustice of the establishment of the state of Israel – which occurred through massive, deliberate and purposeful ethnic cleansing designed to create a Jewish majority in historic Palestine – meant that Israel never really attained moral legitimacy among Palestinians. As Robert Malley and Hussein Agha write in their new book, Tomorrow Is Yesterday: “deep down, most Palestinians, though ready to accept Israel’s existence, have not accepted its historical legitimacy”, a statement whose veracity I can attest to.I remember being a 15-year-old in Palestine. I remember being held up at checkpoints in the West Bank, and being unable to visit Jerusalem or Israel because o...

Politics

5 d. 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

5 d. ago My wife and I are in our 50s and haven't had sex for TWO YEARS. Today I'm revealing all about the desperate truth so many couples hide... by CHRIS TAUNTON

It feels like we wouldn't even know where to start because it's been so long. For two years we have got into bed together, read books or looked at phones, and then gone straight to sleep.

Politics

6 d. ago From White Lotus to the Fatberg Challenge: five immersive shows we can dream of seeing

Elvis, Grease and Traitors Live are all the rage this summer. But could audiences be tempted to try something a little different?This is the summer of the live immersive experience – Elvis, Grease, Traitors Live – but the biggest shows are expensive and tickets are already selling out. Never fear: there are plenty of other experiences out there for anyone looking to get immersed on a budget, or to try something a bit different. But what? We had a look at a few we could imagine happily queueing for. Book now, while places remain. Continue reading...

Events

8 d. ago I read every day — this 'addictive' new book based on a Hollywood rivalry is a must

Ella Berman's latest novel is loosely based on an infamous Hollywood rivalry - and it's well worth adding to your summer reading list

Culture

9 d. ago I changed my mind on banning the bomb, but the threat of nuclear war is growing – and so is complacency | Polly Toynbee

Though the weapons I campaigned against remain terrifying, I doubt we can disarm unilaterally. That should be the stuff of vital debate: right now, it isn’t This week marks 80 years since the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the few remaining witnesses tell of incinerated, melted and obliterated families. Soon there will be none left to remember. Survivors’ graphic accounts of “the noiseless flash” were captured by John Hersey in his book Hiroshima, read by my generation with shock and fear. Nevil Shute’s On the Beach taught us every gut-wrenching detail of the radiation sickness I fully expected to die of. Civil defence leaflets told families how to hide under the stairs with a radio and torch.I grew up expecting early death by nuclear war. My father was a 1957 founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament who didn’t expect us to survive inevitable nuclear holocaust. He carried a large bottle of suicide pills, enough to kill us all when the bomb fell, to save us from slowly ...

Events

9 d. ago Clarkson’s Farm star Harriet Cowan shares emotional message after show exit

The 24-year-old farmhand and nurse from Derbyshire only appeared on the show for a short time, but quickly became a firm fan favourite

Politics

9 d. ago Best new books to read, from Taylor Jenkins Reid to David Szalay

Discover debut novelists and immersive page-turners from acclaimed authors

Politics

9 d. 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

1 week ago New children's book uses storytelling to support anxious young minds post

Debut author Dina Subasciaki launches Aneena and the Elephant, a therapeutic picture book designed to help children manage anxiety through the power of story

Politics

1 week ago ‘No one could compete’: readers remember the magic of Allan Ahlberg’s stories

A godsend to teachers winning children over to books, they have also provided precious shared family fun and ‘jolts of warmth and home’Allan Ahlberg, beloved children’s author, dies aged 87‘I worked with kids who struggled – this one boy would listen with rapture’ Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago David Squires on his boxing forebear who died on the Titanic

Our cartoonist tells the story of his great-great-uncle David John Bowen, a champion who lost his life on the way to New YorkBuy one of David’s cartoons in our Print ShopDavid’s new book, Chaos in the Box: buy it now Continue reading...

Events