Nicola Barker: 'If I have a life philosophy, it's ferocious innocence'
The offbeat novelist on the difficulty of writing novels about writing novels
March 2020
Lockdown reading
Tackle that to-be-read pile: the books to try if you're self-isolating
From Nora Ephron to Thomas Mann, here are 12 books to entertain, challenge and inspire if you’re confined at home due to Covid-19
January 2020
On my radar
On my radar: Emma Jane Unsworth’s cultural highlights
The novelist on William Blake, crying through Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and an insightful poem about teenage masturbation
September 2019
Best culture of the 21st century
The 100 best books of the 21st century
Dazzling debut novels, searing polemics, the history of humanity and trailblazing memoirs ... Read our pick of the best books since 2000
July 2019
I Am Sovereign by Nicola Barker – in a class of her own
Book of the day
I Am Sovereign by Nicola Barker review – The Author strikes back
June 2019
Top 10s
Top 10 books about the River Thames
From bucolic source to marshy lower reaches, London’s mighty river has inspired great writing
April 2018
Ali Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro and Hilary Mantel top poll of best UK and Irish authors
Critics, academics and authors vote to find ‘the new Elizabethans’, to correct the tendency to champion older authors as the literary establishment
January 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 errant teenagers in fiction
From Infinite Jest’s antsy prodigy to Brighton Rock’s haunted antihero, debut novelist Danny Denton picks the best bad girls and boys in books
December 2017
'Where do I think best? In bed' – authors reveal their dream retreats
A hotel on the Moray Firth estuary; an adrenaline-filled auction room in west London; an ad man’s office in Manhattan on DVD … AL Kennedy, William Boyd and others celebrate their cultural hideouts
November 2017
My writing day
Nicola Barker: ‘Each novel has its own specially designed notebook. These are sacred objects to me’
Nicola Barker wins Goldsmiths prize for her novel H(a)ppy
September 2017
The contradictions of a very English train journey
Nicola Barker
An overbooked carriage can make you really appreciate the many paradoxes and elusive nature of national character
August 2017
H(a)ppy by Nicola Barker review – life in a world without stories
Nicola Barker’s kaleidoscopic new novel is a socio-political futurama with a wildness and honesty all of its own
July 2017
A life in ...
Nicola Barker: ‘I find books about middle-class people so boring – I feel like stabbing myself’
The books interview: The novelist on religion, Love Island and her ‘catastrophic urge’ to destroy narrative
On my radar
On my radar: Nicola Barker’s cultural highlights
The novelist on a documentary rich in drama, street art in Shoreditch and her love of small scarves
Book of the day
H(a)ppy by Nicola Barker review – visionary satire of a new information age
Barker is as glorious and gnomic as ever in this vision of a dystopian future which defies narrative and typographic convention
April 2016
The Cauliflower by Nicola Barker – review
Book of the day
The Cauliflower by Nicola Barker review – unclassifiable genius
February 2016
Books blog
Tips, links and suggestions: what are you reading this week?
Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them – plus our favourite literary links
