From sunny novels that revel in the picturesque to stark reports from one of the poorest regions in northern Europe, this county’s literature deserves more than a visit
February 2023
Audiobook of the week
Mother’s Boy by Patrick Gale review – imagining Charles Causley’s life
This fictionalised biography of the Cornish poet covers his tender bond with his mother, and the effects of losing a friend during war
June 2021
Novelists issue plea to save English degrees as demand slumps
Authors blame government ‘prejudice’ against humanities, as loss of applicants hits university courses
July 2019
Top 10s
Top 10 queer rural books
Sexual freedom is most often associated with the city, but a small but growing canon including EM Forster and Sarah Waters tells a different story
August 2018
Take Nothing With You by Patrick Gale review – a young cellist’s coming of age
Books interview
Patrick Gale: ‘It’s true, I adore books about nuns’
May 2017
Green Carnation award goes to Aids history How to Survive a Plague
David France’s study of the struggle for effective treatment of a disease that was initially widely ignored was described by judges as ‘vital and important’
March 2017
Authors condemn £4m library fund as a 'sop' and a 'whitewash'
Patrick Gale, Mark Billingham and Francesca Simon among writers suggesting government scheme will do little to rescue sector that has been hit hard by cuts
June 2016
Simon Mawer's Tightrope wins Walter Scott prize for historical fiction
Drama of concentration camp survivor, set in 1950s London, praised by judges as ‘a spy story in the grand tradition’
January 2016
Kate Atkinson wins Costa novel prize for A God in Ruins
Described as ‘utterly magnificent’ by the judges, Atkinson’s award makes her the first author to receive a Costa prize three times: for a God in Ruins in 2016, Life After Life in 2013 and Behind the Scenes at the Museum in 1995
November 2015
Books blog
Motifs, mottos and misfits shape the 2015 Costa award shortlists
A common thread runs through each of the five shortlists for this year’s Costa awards, but there’s always space for an outsider
The Costa category shortlists 2015 – in pictures
This year’s five shortlists pit Alice in Wonderland against a 17th century diarist, a collection of sonnets against a hymn to male flesh, and English pastoral against stories of war
Costa category awards 2015: tiny presses square up to big hitters
The shortlists for the five prizes include award-winners Anne Enright and Kate Atkinson – and a gothic thriller set in Morecambe Bay, with an original print run of 300
September 2015
A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale review – secrets, scandal and Canadian colonialism
The life of Patrick Gale’s great grandfather provides the backdrop for a dramatic tale of one man’s desperate bid for a new life
August 2015
The place that inspires me: artists on their creative hotspots
The roots of home, a wild escape… most creative types have a place that unlocks their imagination. We asked writers, musicians and artists to tell us about theirs
May 2015
The Guardian Books podcast
Books that talk to each other – podcast
We explore the connections between Patrick Gale’s novel A Place Called Winter and a memoir from Barbara Taylor, The Last Asylum
April 2015
A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale review – an elegy for the disappeared
Cast out of his old life, an Englishman becomes a settler in Canada, but takes his demons with him in this confident, supple narrative
March 2015
Meet the author
Patrick Gale: ‘There was a mythology about "cowboy grandpa" and I was always suspicious’
The novelist on his new book’s debt to his great-grandfather and life as a ‘cattle boy’ on his husband’s farm
February 2015
Publishers bypass literary agents to discover bestseller talent
Cutting out the middlemen of the literary world can lead to the discovery of acclaimed authors such as Andrea Bennett
January 2014
Maupin and me: on the Tales of the City Tour
After more than 30 years documenting the lives and loves of a group of friends in San Francisco, Armistead Maupin's series has finally come to an end. Damian Barr makes a pilgrimage to 28 Barbary Lane
