Gary Lineker, Theresa May and David Nicholls join the Hay festival 2024 lineup
This year’s festival promises to be a ‘civic platform’, with a new series of daily news analysis, a debate about the Israel-Gaza war and an appeal to the younger generation
February 2024
Our bodies are incredible. That’s why I believe in the power of extended fasting
Jeanette Winterson
The author explains why she chose to embark on a 10-day fast under medical supervision in Germany
December 2023
The pet I'll never forget
The pet I’ll never forget: Jeanette Winterson on Silver, ‘the brightest cat I have ever had’
I know what it means to leave your mother too soon – and Silver came to me at just five weeks old. It was the start of an unbreakable bond
November 2023
Rory Stewart, Jeanette Winterson and Marlon James announced for Hay festival 2024
‘It is a beast that needs to be tamed’: leading novelists on how AI could rewrite the future
October 2023
Night Side of the River by Jeanette Winterson review – uneasy ghost stories
Night Side of the River by Jeanette Winterson review – ghost stories that reinvigorate the supernatural
September 2023
‘Ghosts love my house’: Jeanette Winterson on hauntings, high spirits and post-humanism
Over a long lunch, the writer talks about ghostly encounters, embracing AI, rebelling against convention and why our future human life holds no fears for her
April 2023
Tapestry celebrating refuse collectors to go on show in National Portrait Gallery
Michael Armitage’s work will hang alongside high-profile figures in new gallery when NPG reopens in June
November 2022
Top 10s
Top 10 books about losing faith
Authors from Jeanette Winterson to William Shakespeare tell stories of people doubting not just God but everything that gives their life meaning
January 2022
Activists warn against loophole in UK ban on conversion practices
Centenary recording of Ulysses to be read by Eddie Izzard, Margaret Atwood and others
December 2021
Audiobook of the week
Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas by Adam Kay audiobook review – festivities on the NHS frontline
The doctor turned comic writer’s seasonal hospital tales range from hilarious mishaps to heart-breakers
August 2021
12 Bytes by Jeanette Winterson review – engaging history of technological progress
Whether examining sex dolls or transhumanism, the novelist brings her skill as a storyteller to these ambitious, hugely entertaining essays
July 2021
The best original photographs from the Observer
Original Observer Photography
The fastest British woman in history, the return of the music festival, and a collection of canines – the best photography commissioned by the Observer in July 2021
Jeanette Winterson: ‘The male push is to discard the planet: all the boys are going off into space’
The writer’s new essay collection covers 200 years of women and science. She discusses burning books and the ensuing Twitter storm, the end of her marriage, and why a move into politics could be next
12 Bytes by Jeanette Winterson review – how we got here and where we might go next
Twelve essays drawing on years of research into artificial intelligence ask challenging questions about humanity, art, religion and the way we live and love
June 2021
Jeanette Winterson burns her own books in protest at ‘cosy little blurbs’
British novelist says republished works were presented as ‘wimmins fiction of the worst kind’
December 2020
Books blog
The sexiest moments in literature that aren't sex scenes
With the Bad sex in fiction award cancelled this year, we celebrate authors from Jeanette Winterson to Jane Austen who can charge the dryest scenes with sensuality
June 2020
Top 10s
Top 10 books about witch-hunts
These stories by authors from Elizabeth Gaskell to Jeanette Winterson show how societies in turmoil turn on the most vulnerable
