Your holiday reading list: chosen by Zadie Smith, David Nicholls and more
More than 100 artists tell Starmer to halt arms sales to Israel if he becomes PM
February 2024
Five of the best
Five of the best books about grief
This month's best paperbacks
This month’s best paperbacks: Salman Rushdie, Greta Thunberg and more
December 2023
The best original photographs from the Observer
Original Observer Photography
From Suede to quiz whiz Carol Vorderman: the best original photographs from the Observer commissioned in December 2023
Books interview
Michael Rosen: ‘My daughter once called me an “optimistic nihilist”’
The former children’s laureate who has enjoyed a red letter year on striving for happiness, the secret to writing for kids, and which book he wants for Christmas
‘A hero to millions’: Benjamin Zephaniah remembered by Michael Rosen, Kae Tempest and more
The acclaimed writer and poet for children and adults has died aged 65. Here, leading contemporaries pay tribute
November 2023
Myra Barrs obituary
Literacy pioneer who championed children’s access to books and poems, and the use of storytelling, drama and role-play
Putting a price on life during the pandemic
Letters:Peter Johnstone is grateful to the doctors and nurses who thought his was a life worth saving when he got Covid. Plus a letter from Roger Downie
‘Who were you to decide that our innings was over?’ Michael Rosen’s Covid inquiry poem
The poet and broadcaster, who spent 48 days in intensive care after contracting coronavirus, reflects on the ‘chilling’ evidence from the Covid inquiry, and pens a poem in response
October 2023
Picture books for children – reviews
Benji Davies returns with more coastal charms, lonely animals find acceptance – plus Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s tale about a toddler
Imprisoned Uyghur academic named 2023 PEN writer of courage
Professor and global expert on Uyghur folklore Rahile Dawut was reportedly sentenced to life in prison after going missing six years ago
Brief letters
Paying £7.15 for a sarnie? Use yer loaf
Brief letters: Food prices | Dogs don’t vote | Sunak’s war | Predictive text | Shirt pockets | Smells like H2S
September 2023
The sleep secret: how lucid dreams can make us fitter, more creative and less anxious
Brief letters
An unhealthy love affair with cheese
July 2023
Authors join online campaign to save ‘vital’ Devon mobile library services
Stephen Fry and Michael Rosen say that councillors’ choice to discontinue the vans would restrict people’s access to books and amounts to an ‘act of cruelty’
June 2023
Author Michael Rosen wins 2023 PEN Pinter prize for ‘fearless’ body of work
Writer of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt is a ‘passionate linguist, gifted humanist, national treasure and ambassador of gibberish’
February 2023
Unexpected Twist review – Oliver gets a phone in beatboxing version of Dickens’s classic
Book of the day
Getting Better by Michael Rosen review – a survivor’s manual
January 2023
‘I knew my son had gone’: Michael Rosen on the moment that changed his life – extract
In this extract from his new book, Getting Better, the author and poet describes the death of his beloved teenage son, Eddie
