Alan Johnson: ‘I read Animal Farm at 14 and it changed my life’
The author and former home secretary on disliking Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend and his fondness for PG Wodehouse
November 2020
BBC's A Suitable Boy rankles 'love jihad' conspiracy theorists in India
BJP reaction to depiction of Hindu-Muslim romance follows recent rows over interfaith marriages
September 2020
Top 10s
Top 10 verse novels
From Homer’s classical epic to Kae Tempest’s mythic struggles in modern London, these books show that poetry can be more immediate than prose
July 2020
Toronto film festival announces line-up with Mark Wahlberg drama premiering
TV review
A Suitable Boy review – a very British, Indian period drama
TV tonight
TV tonight: Vikram Seth's Indian drama finally comes to screen
'This show is just the start': inside the BBC's all-person-of-colour A Suitable Boy
February 2016
Indian LGBT activists hold vigils before court rules on anti-gay law
Indian supreme court to rule on colonial-era penal code that bans gay sex, after 2013 judgment reversed years of gradual liberalisation
March 2015
Reading American cities
Books about San Francisco: readers' picks
From yuppies to Harvey Milk via Jack London, here is your essential reading list for San Francisco travels – real or imaginary
July 2014
Fifty greatest modern love poems list embraces 30 different countries
Global reach of experts' new selection ranges over last 50 years, from Scotland to Saudi Arabia, Korea to Kurdistan
May 2014
Narendra Modi and the new face of India
With the rise of Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi culminating in this week's election, Pankaj Mishra asks if the world's largest democracy is entering its most sinister period since independence
December 2013
Vikram Seth: India's gay sex ban is against our tradition of tolerance
'Incensed' author says Indian supreme court reinstatement of law curtailing LGBT rights is an attack on millions of people
September 2013
Books blog
Vikram Seth finds a suitable publisher
Sequel to A Suitable Boy will be published after all – only two years late
July 2013
Vikram Seth in trouble over uncompleted Suitable Boy sequel
Novelist who received seven-figure advance for A Suitable Girl, following up his giant bestseller, has missed deadline
January 2012
Poetry: in brief
Charles Bainbridge on The Rivered Earth by Vikram Seth and The Salt Book of Younger Poets
December 2011
Room of my own
A room of my own: Vikram Seth
The author opens the door of his music room in the Wiltshire rectory he's filled with all things Indian and Chinese
July 2009
Vikram Seth writes Suitable Boy sequel
A Suitable Girl brings the story into the present day and is due out in 2013
June 2009
Charity aids the art of storytelling
Review: Ox-Tales - Air, Water, Fire and Earth A series of short stories commissioned by Oxfam may sound unbearably worthy, but William Skidelsky is hugely impressed
April 2009
In search of India
This year's London book fair celebrates the diversity of contemporary Indian writing. How much do the novelists of the new generation have in common, asks Amit Chaudhuri. Writers and publishers recommend old favourites and rising stars
