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Terry Pratchett opted to have his crushed by a steamroller.
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Why are parents increasingly inserting their child’s name into stories?
A controversial book about Nelson Mandela’s last years has been withdrawn.
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The contentious book documenting Nelson Mandela’s last days that was pulled of the shelves left many unanswered questions. Judgement must be suspended until it’s content is made public.
The Mendi shown here in pre-war days in use as a mail ship.
Courtesy of the John Gribble Collection
What might be the purpose of historical fiction? Perhaps to the humble and subtle to recognise and pay tribute to lives that came before us.
Allied forces wearing gas masks at Ypres, 1917.
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The first fully industrialised war prompted many to draw parallels between human society and the insect world.
Arundhati Roy, in 2010.
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Author and activist Arundhati Roy proves once again that she is a passionate voice of dissent in a nation that’s tilting towards authoritarianism.
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How has Malcolm Lowry’s novel stood the test of time?
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The novelist’s life was marked by the financial industry … and not always for the best.
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It’s gritty and gripping in equal measure, but the swords and snowstorm narrative also answers a number of basic human needs.
Mme Soazig de la Moissonniere/Elysee.
Macron’s portrait and taste in literature are full of political symbols to be sussed.
Young adult literature is starting to explore death in depth.
Lionsgate
Death used to happen off the page in kids’ books, but not anymore. They kill each other in The Hunger Games, and 13 Reasons Why graphically describes the impact of teen suicide.
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How academic sleuthing uncovered the Edinburgh setting for a historic meeting of three of the greatest war poets
Eymet, a small village in the Perigord, is home to hundreds of British people.
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While people from many nations have chosen to make their home in France, the British were among the first and remain the most numerous.
Alexis Wright won the Miles Franklin award for her 2006 novel Carpentaria.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Do you read Australia’s First Nations writers? If not, why not? The time is well overdue for non-indigenous Australians to engage with the original inhabitants of the country.
The author in London in 1986, aged 69.
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In his lifetime Anthony Burgess was a strong advocate of free expression. A forthcoming book promises to bring his political writing back into focus.
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British readers are missing out on a wealth of literature written by non-English women writers.
Platform 9 and ¾, the portal to Harry Potter’s magical world, at Kings Cross in London.
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Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first in the phenomenally successful series, turns 20 this month. Despite criticism of their status as ‘literature’, the books remain a magical experience for children.
Many literary questions about smell are quite philosophical. Why do humans get pleasure from perfumes? Do rich bodies smell differently from poor ones?
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Smell is the Cinderella of the senses in Anglophone literature, but James Joyce wrote an olfactory revolution. His treatment of the science of smell was astonishingly prescient.
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The late Gordon Burn’s prophetic writing predicted our obsession with celebrity and the media.
Bob Dylan pictured in 2012: his long synopses of a seemingly random list of books made up the bulk of this week’s Nobel Prize speech.
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
This extraordinarily odd speech might well be the singer’s most Dylanesque performance.