Making your mind up: the best descriptions of indecision in literature
The last word, our series about emotions and states of mind in books, focuses on depictions of dithering this month, from Hamlet to the ‘maybe-boyfriend’ of Anna Burns’s Milkman
March 2022
Top 10s
Top 10 Northern Irish novels
Northern Ireland has always had a voice, and we’ve never been short of storytellers. The challenge has been finding someone to listen
October 2021
The Audio Long Read
Inside the Booker Prize: arguments, agonies and carefully encouraged scandals – podcast
The long read
Inside the Booker Prize: arguments, agonies and carefully encouraged scandals
August 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 bookworms in fiction
If you’re reading a novel, the chances are you’ll be able to relate to characters who love reading, too. These works showcase some of literature’s finest bibliophiles
January 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 books about children fending for themselves
Facing up to the world without adult support is present in Greek myths and remains a key theme in authors from Anna Burns to Douglas Stuart and Rachel Kushner
November 2020
Top 10s
Top 10 books about consent
From Thomas Hardy to Kristen Roupenian, literature offers a changing map of the treacherous terrain of sexual relationships
April 2020
Top 10s
Top 10 Irish gothic novels
From ancient terrors to modern horrors, authors from Oscar Wilde to Anna Burns have found in Ireland rich and genuinely scary storytelling terrain
December 2019
Wait, be patient, keep faith: an unlikely mantra for life
Alice O'Keeffe
In these turbulent times, we can all learn from novelist Anna Burns’s creative process for opening her mind, says literary critic Alice O’Keeffe
August 2019
Impossible times for political novels
Letters:Peter Taylor-Gooby and Doug Sandle respond to Dorian Lynskey’s article on the death of the political novel
June 2019
Two books about Northern Irish Troubles win Orwell prize 2019
Book clinic
Book clinic: which European fiction will revive my love of modernist novels?
April 2019
Feminist retellings of history dominate 2019 Women's prize shortlist
From Pat Barker’s reworking of Greek myth to Anna Burns’s take on the Troubles, the finalists turn familiar stories on their heads
March 2019
Anna Burns and Sally Rooney on Rathbones Folio prize longlist
Booker winner Milkman and Normal People, which took the Costa novel award, among 20 contenders for the £30,000 prize
January 2019
Top 10s
Top 10 books about the Troubles
Novelist David Keenan picks fiction, history and reportage that record the devastating conflict that convulsed Northern Ireland for three decades
December 2018
Audiobooks, inclusivity and #MeToo ... how books changed in 2018
New agents and imprints, Northern Ireland’s first Man Booker winner … in 2018 the books world turned towards inclusivity and a broadening of perspectives
November 2018
Pretentious, impenetrable, hard work ... better? Why we need difficult books
This year’s Booker-winner Milkman has been criticised for being challenging. But are we confusing readability with literary value?
October 2018
Universal credit could silence working-class writers, MPs told
All-party inquiry into authors’ incomes hears the ‘minimum income floor’ in the new benefit’s rules could mean only the wealthy will write
Digested week
Sinking feeling about Titanic replica and a 'challenging' Booker read
John Crace
Also this week: Gordon Ramsay’s empty nest syndrome and overrun Commons proceedings
Booker winner Milkman defies 'challenging' reputation to become bestseller
Anna Burns’s novel sold almost 10,000 copies in the first days after the prize, and Faber has printed 120,000 additional copies to meet demand
