Reading group: which modernist book should we read this month?
From James Joyce to HG Wells, the efforts of 20th-century writers to find fresh forms for new times have not grown old. Please share your innovative choices
February 2018
Does it matter if authors make up their memoirs?
Jerome Boyd Maunsell
Joseph Conrad invented a boat, HG Wells omitted his affairs. But does it matter if this imaginative licence reveals a different kind of truth, asks Jerome Boyd Maunsell
December 2015
Top 10s
Top 10 novels about unfaithful wives
From the class-crossing Constance Chatterley to Tolstoy’s enchanting Anna Karenina, here are 10 wives caught in flagrante delicto by their creators
August 2015
Other lives
Nora Tomlinson obituary
Rereading
Ford Madox Ford: as scary as HP Lovecraft?
March 2015
Reading group
The Good Soldier: is John Dowell quite who he seems?
Vicious, sneaking creep or naive, honourable husband? Like much in Ford Madox Ford’s classic, Dowell’s character can be read in different ways. Let’s examine the evidence
Reading group
The Good Soldier: just how good is he?
Ford Madox Ford hated the title given to his classic novel of a toxic marriage. But pondering it offers a point of entry to this endlessly mysterious book
Reading group
March’s Reading group: The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
Hemingway said he smelled, Pound called him a liar, and some say he was antisemitic – but he was also a prose genius, and this month’s choice is a modernist classic, writes Sam Jordison
January 2015
Baddies in books
Baddies in books: Sylvia Tietjens in Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End
A very stylish sadist, her sustained campaign to ruin her husband is inventively malign but all too believable, writes Moira Redmond
June 2014
The 100 best novels
The 100 best novels: No 41 - The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915)
Ford's masterpiece is a searing study of moral dissolution behind the facade of an English gentleman – and its stylistic influence lingers to this day, says Robert McCrum
January 2014
Books blog
Chick noir: a thoroughly modern Victorian marriage thriller
From The Woman in White to Lady Audley's Secret, Victorian novels are full of dangerously deceptive and desiring women, writes Charlotte Jones
March 2013
Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall win honours for Parade's End
Parade's End actors and writer sweep up prizes at Broadcasting Press Guild Awards
October 2012
Nicholas Lezard's choice
Through the Window by Julian Barnes – review
Lessons from a literary master craftsman
September 2012
Classics corner
Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford – review
This epic portrait of paradise lost in the England of 100 years ago richly deserves a wider readership, writes Simon Hammond
The Gentle Tory is alive and well – on television
David Priestland
David Priestland: Period dramas like Parade's End reveal a yearning for a conservative type that politics has left behind
Parade's End marches on but loses out in battle for Friday night ratings
BBC2's period drama ships nearly a million viewers for second episode, while C4's ratings boosted by Paralympics coverage. By Jason Deans
August 2012
Observer TV reviews
Rewind TV: Parade's End; The Last Weekend; Funny Fortnight; The Queen's Mother-in-Law – review
Julian Barnes: a tribute to Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford
July 2012
Meet the author
Ned Beauman: 'What sticks in my mind is praise from the wrong people'
The author of the acclaimed Boxer, Beetle explains how his second book was helped by those pesky reviewers on Amazon. By Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy
May 2012
Reading group
A Moveable Feast rises above the struggle of Hemingway's later years
By 1956 Hemingway was in a terrible state, in both mind and body, but he could still craft writing that is eternal
