How to Make a Bomb by Rupert Thomson review – a stark study of male rage
The destructive desires of an inoffensive family man drive this subversive satire of existentialism
March 2024
How to Make a Bomb by Rupert Thomson review – struck by sickness, an academic seeks solace in love
A man swaps his comfortable existence for an affair in Thomson’s lyrical study of a midlife crisis
June 2021
Barcelona Dreaming by Rupert Thomson review – a magical homage to Catalonia
Barcelona Dreaming by Rupert Thomson review – heartbreak and hope in the city
August 2020
Top 10s
Top 10 books about Florence
Seducing writers from Boccaccio to EM Forster, this city has given us gossipy and rich histories, and a shadowy backdrop to crime
January 2019
Books that made me
Rupert Thomson: ‘I'm drawn to Flannery O'Connor's quiet savagery’
The novelist on Mary Norton, Thomas Hardy, finding a long-lost brother through his own memoir and publishers’ hype
June 2018
Book of the day
Never Anyone But You by Rupert Thomson review – life transformed by art
Reinventing themselves and resisting Nazi occupation: the French surrealists Claude Cahun and her lover Marcel Moore inspire a taut, magnificently controlled novel
May 2018
Book of the day
Never Anyone But You by Rupert Thomson review – arrestingly accomplished
Two real-life artistic pioneers challenge gender boundaries and the Nazis in Thomson’s elegant and menacing 10th novel
January 2018
How my novel ended up on David Bowie's must-read list
To find the novel I’d written was one of my hero’s favourites – and may now be chosen for his new book group – is an honour like no other, writes Rupert Thomson
December 2017
Unmissable culture of 2018
Julian Barnes, Sebastian Faulks, Leïla Slimani … the best fiction for 2018
Books by Rupert Thomson, Aminatta Forna and a clutch of brilliant debuts are among the novels to look out for this year
February 2016
Top 10s
Top 10 Arctic novels
The stark extremes of this forbidding territory have provided a brilliant setting for writers from Mary Shelley to Alistair MacLean, writes novelist Ian McGuire
January 2016
Costa short story prize reveals identities of anonymised finalists
The six-strong shortlist, which the public have been voting for ‘blind’, includes work by Rupert Thomson, Peggy Riley and Annalisa Crawford
November 2015
Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson review – resists easy categories
Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson review – swift, shocking and satisfying
October 2013
David Bowie's top 100 must-read books
Jack Kerouac, Spike Milligan and Sarah Waters among star's favourite authors, revealed at exhibition in Ontario
March 2013
Secrecy by Rupert Thomson – review
Rupert Thomson's masterful tale of intrigue in 17th-century Florence might be his best one yet, writes Stephanie Merritt
Secrecy by Rupert Thomson – review
Christobel Kent is gripped by a visionary tale of waxworks and court intrigue set in a sinister and baroque Florence
A life in ...
Rupert Thomson: a life in writing
'Fiction is related to ethics. You step out of your skin and become someone else'
January 2013
2013 arts preview
2013: the year ahead in books
From a full programme of film and stage adaptations to a new James Bond novel, unpublished works by RS Thomas and WG Sebald and a new prize for women writers, 2013 is set to be a real page-turner
March 2010
This Party's Got to Stop by Rupert Thomson
Julie Myerson admires a novelist's quest to put things right, decades after his family fell apart
