Kit de Waal: ‘Life is too short to finish books I don’t like’
The writer on finding teenage inspiration in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Donald Sutherland’s reading of Hemingway and Sebastian Barry’s poetic prose
November 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 novels and stories of the 1970s
In a decade when feminism brought a new weight to the treatment and status of women in fiction, the best male writers began to take domestic life seriously
July 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 books about the aftermath of empire
From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to John le Carré, the novelist recommends reading about a vast, anguished legacy
November 2019
Books that made me
Ann Patchett: ‘Hunger by Roxane Gay opened my eyes’
The novelist on learning from John Updike, failing to read Anthony Trollope and the laugh-out-loud comedy of Nina Stibbe
February 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 books about cheating
From illicit James Salter to category-defying Jeanette Winterson, here are the best contemporary works about romantic infidelity
October 2016
Top 10s
Top 10 books about old men
From King Lear to Père Goriot, Monet’s biographer chooses some of the best portrayals of men who hold our attention at an age when most writers are no longer interested
September 2015
Paperback writer
Jane Gardam: 'Write everything. Write about linoleum'
The author of the Old Filth trilogy explains why, despite her award-winning career as a novelist, it’s short stories she loves best
May 2014
The Stories by Jane Gardam review – a short-story collection bound by magic
Christobel Kent on a formidable collection that is at once outlandish and entirely convincing
March 2014
US authors take the literary prizes but British writers still pushing boundaries
As US writer George Saunders wins first Folio fiction prize, the message to young UK talent waiting in the wings is don't despair
Open thread: Is British fiction in crisis?
AS Byatt is concerned by failing 'energy' in British fiction, and a dumbed-down publishing industry. How do you read the current scene?
Anne Carson is bookies' favourite to win inaugural Folio prize
Verse retelling of Greek myth leads a shortlist for the £40,000 prize with combined UK sales of fewer than 20,000 copies
February 2014
Folio Prize shortlist - in pictures
Books blog
The Folio prize shortlist: adventures on familiar ground
December 2013
Comfort reading
Comfort reading: Crusoe's Daughter by Jane Gardam
Claire Armitstead kicks off a series on writers and readers' favourite books to curl up with on biting winter nights
August 2013
Books blog
Edinburgh international book festival 2013 takes a stroll down memory lane
The Guardian Books podcast
Edinburgh international book festival podcast: Jane Gardam and Cerys Matthews
January 2011
A life in ...
Jane Gardam
'I think I would have died if my first book hadn't been published. I was desperate to get started – I was possessed'
February 2010
Author, author
Jane Gardam on bringing poetry to the streets of Sandwich
'Late one night we set out with ladders and lanterns (poetry should be subversive), looking for lamp-posts.'
