Disaster appears imminent as Seydoux and an impressive George MacKay meet across three different eras in what is maybe Bertrand Bonello’s best movie yet

From schoolboy trips to booze-ups with New York garbage men, the novelist recalls how he fell for the fabulous world of opera – and managed to break in, with a staging of his book about Henry James

As she returns with a new album, the French chanteuse recalls the genius of the Clash and Henry James, plus encounters with Balearic naturists

James’s rich dialogue and clashing-cultures theme make his country-house play worthy of a renewed offer

How did the young critic Virginia Woolf become the famous novelist? This book provides an answer

From Toni Morrison’s desolate tale of slavery’s legacy to Alice Sebold’s vision of heaven, Louise Doughty selects the best books that defy disbelief

The novelist on a childhood encounter with The Metamorphosis, being inspired by Henry James and changed by St Teresa of Avila

Repressive laws overshadowing the bedroom and the bookshop ... a study of gay Victorians and ‘obscenity’

As 2018 ends, the author reveals the books he has finally got round to reading this year – hardy survivors, he explains, of years of house moves and bookshelf clear-outs

From the ancient Minotaur myth to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining … why are mazes so powerful and comforting in confusing times?

Harper Lee never wanted Go Set a Watchman brought out, Sylvia Plath’s diary was burned by Ted Hughes – the controversial world of literary legacies