Joshua Ferris: ‘ A House for Mr Biswas is as near to perfect as a book gets’
The author on reading John Gray at a time of grief, the joy of Samuel Pepys and and his favourite Thomas Pynchon
November 2020
'It had been on my shelf for years': readers share their lockdown reads
Publishers report that coronavirus has boosted sales of long, classic novels. You reveal the great baggy monsters you’ve found the time to tackle
January 2020
William Gibson: ‘I was losing a sense of how weird the real world was'
The writer who invented ‘cyberspace’ – and possibly the most influential living sci-fi author – on the challenges of keeping up with a reality even stranger than fiction
August 2019
Top 10s
From Kafka to Gogol via Pynchon: top 10 absurd quests in fiction
From seeking how to stop being an ass to finding out where a month has gone missing, these stories are as weird as life
July 2019
Books blog
The Sandman, Catch-22, Cloud Atlas ... is there such thing as an 'unfilmable' book?
Books by authors like Neil Gaiman and Gabriel García Márquez have been dismissed as too difficult to adapt. With Netflix offering both time and cash, is that true anymore?
April 2019
What’s in a name? Authors on choosing names for their characters
From Margaret Atwood’s Offred to Thomas Harris’s Hannibal the cannibal, names can end up shaping characters in ways even their creators never intended
October 2018
The Guardian view on modern writers: the myth of the reclusive author
Editorial: These days, most writers cannot afford to live secluded from their public. But when a very private author like Thomas Harris announces a new novel, there’s always special excitement
August 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 novels about riots
From Victor Hugo to JG Ballard, these incendiary books make readers co-conspirators in the insurrection they depict
January 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 conspiracy theories in fiction
Stories that appear to buy into hidden plots, from Franz Kafka to Thomas Pynchon, have an insistent appeal for readers looking to find out ‘what really happened’
May 2017
Books blog
Thomas Pynchon at 80 – eight reasons to celebrate his birthday
He is a master of comedy, a father of cyberpunk, alert to the politics of his time … the author turns 80 today
April 2017
Books blog
From Atwood's assault to Pynchon's paper bag: the best author cameos
The Handmaid’s Tale author’s appearance in the TV version of her novel is only the latest in a surprisingly illustrious roll call of bookish bit parts
September 2016
Bernard Bergonzi obituary
Poet, literary critic and professor of English at Warwick University known for his work on TS Eliot, HG Wells and Gerard Manley Hopkins
June 2016
Damien Walter's weird things
Systems fiction: a novel way to think about the present
Read it and keep: is it time to reassess the 'beach read'?
May 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
March 2016
Richard Fariña: lost genius who bridged the gap between beats and hippies
He was Thomas Pynchon’s roommate, he hung out with Bob Dylan and wrote an American cult classic, yet Fariña is a name few know outside of literary circles
February 2016
War and Peace … and then what?
Andrew Davies’s triumphant TV series has caused sales of Tolstoy’s epic to soar. Here are five more big reads to fill the gap – from Finnegans Wake to Gravity’s Rainbow. And every one is ripe for the small screen
May 2015
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
April 2015
Baddies in books
Baddies in books: Captain Blicero in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow
Why did we see Don Draper reading Dante’s Inferno in Mad Men?
