Could the pugnacious writer ever have imagined that he would one day become a cult hero?
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Is the writer’s appeal less about the power and complexity of his prose, and more about the view of him as a perennial underdog?
Author James Patterson and former President Bill Clinton attend a book signing for The President is Missing.
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An expert discusses how much of his coauthored novels former president Bill Clinton wrote himself, compared to his wife and fellow novelist, Hillary Clinton.
A new biography of Jean Rhys, the Dominican-born author of Wide Sargasso Sea, pays close attention to her origins – but stops short of examining the colonial relations that are central to her story.
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How Chaucer’s medieval Wife of Bath continues to make her voice heard
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Writing from lived experience often has legitimacy, but autofiction has fictional elements that trouble the autobiographical pact.
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Bringing colour and emotional depth, Baunbach’s adaptation is a good companion to DeLillo’s searing novel.
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Summer reading is a byword for light escapism – but it can mean anything, from catching up on the classics to a new romance novel. Julian Novitz travels to the 19th century to trace its evolution.
A coffin made to resemble a mermaid at a Ga funeral. The Ga people live along the southeast coast of Ghana.
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These literary works ask readers to rethink the histories of these half-human sea creatures and their role in society today.
‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ didn’t begin life as a song, but being set to music helped it find fame.
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‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ is now a treasured Christmas classic, but it didn’t start life that way – not in the UK, at least.
Emily Brontë as portrayed by Emma Mackey in Emily, (2022).
Warner Bros
An expert in the lives and works Brontës argues that it’s time for a radical change in the way we think about Emily Brontë’s death.
Making a book takes lots of brainstorming and writing, but there are many steps to printing it, too.
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It takes a lot of steps – and help from other people – to make a physical book you can hold in your hands.
An illustration from Ducks.
Jonathan Cape
Creative literature has a unique role to play in fighting the climate crisis, as these three graphic novels prove.
The film’s Lady Chatterley and her Mellors have an easier path to love than their literary counterparts.
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D.H. Lawrence’s book is a seething commentary on class, exposing his fears for Britain’s future. But the film is a romantic period drama.
NoViolet Bulawayo, author of Glory.
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Glory is a story about Zimbabwe’s violent past told through animals.
Sophie Davidson
Our tales of the natural world are disappearing and we shouldn’t let them.
Pupils in Kenya hold prayers for victims of a 2013 terror attack in Nairobi.
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Kenyan families with access to mass media are significantly more afraid of terrorism than those without access.
Books have shaped societies throughout the ages.
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Books are one of the oldest forms of communication ‘technology,’ a scholar writes, and understanding how they’ve evolved over time provides insights into their role in society.
Literary devices abound in Taylor Swift’s body of work.
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Swift, like all writers, draws from her literary forebears to craft new works.
Marcel Proust on a French postage stamp.
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From electricity to X-rays, the Doppler Effect and even quantum theory, Proust’s writing is littered with physics references.
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The French writer has won the Nobel for literature for her ascetic approach to writing and fearlessness in covering the personal and taboo.