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London politics
fromSlate Magazine
1 day ago

The Author of Say Nothing Has a New True-Crime Book. It's Remarkable.

Patrick Radden Keefe's 'London Falling' investigates the death of Zac Brettler, exploring themes of tragedy, blame, and urban decay.
fromIndependent
2 days ago

Louise O'Neill: 'I wanted to write the book that I'd like to have read in the early days of my break-up'

"I wonder why I wanted to be famous," she muses now, as we sit across from each other in The Pavilion cafe in Cork.
Books
Arts
fromwww.npr.org
5 days ago

'The Keeper' is a grand finale to Tana French's Cal Hooper crime series

The Keeper concludes the Cal Hooper series, emphasizing environmental themes and the darkness lurking beneath the surface of rural life in Ireland.
Film
fromBustle
5 days ago

The Book That Helped Caitriona Balfe Understand The "Grief" Of Motherhood

Absence of screens fosters reading habits, as experienced by Caitríona Balfe, who reflects on her journey in the series Outlander.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
3 days ago

The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley review the laureate of bad relationships

Gwendoline Riley's novels transform ordinary lives into something startling, exploring themes of disconnection and complex relationships through spare prose and sharp dialogue.
Books
fromAnOther
4 days ago

Djamel White's Novel Is Irish Fiction's Gangland Answer to Heated Rivalry

Djamel White's debut novel, All Them Dogs, blends crime fiction, romance, and tragedy, featuring a complex protagonist navigating the criminal underworld.
fromHyperallergic
1 week ago

Anki King's Nordic Noir

Anki King's work suggests an intimate engagement with New Image painting, particularly the later work of Susan Rothenberg, but she took it in a direction that is recognizably hers.
Arts
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 week ago

The Writer and the Traitor by Robert Verkaik review divided loyalties

Graham Greene announced that he was resigning from MI6. Kim Philby, his chief in Section V, MI6's counterespionage arm, blinked. Greene had played his part in tending the illusion.
London politics
Television
fromBustle
2 weeks ago

Kerry Washington's New Thriller May Have A Shocking Twist

Apple TV's Imperfect Women follows three women navigating an affair and murder, exemplifying the 'good for her' genre where morally gray female characters make questionable choices in response to difficult circumstances.
fromIrish Independent
2 weeks ago

Woman who wrote book to help sons overcome dad's death is found guilty of his murder

Prosecutors said Richins secretly slipped five times the lethal dose of fentanyl into a Moscow Mule cocktail she made for her husband, killing him. A year later, she wrote a children's book to help their sons process the loss.
Law
Books
fromBoston.com
1 week ago

The Boston Public Library is the star of Kate Quinn's latest NYT bestseller

Kate Quinn's latest novel, 'The Astral Library,' is a love letter to books and Boston, inspired by her experiences at the Boston Public Library.
fromwww.independent.co.uk
2 weeks ago

Muriel McKay family speak out after bone found in search was non-human

Mark Dyer, Ms McKay's grandson, stated that the family has experienced a rollercoaster of emotions since the bone found was confirmed not to be human. He expressed a sense of calm, stating, 'We're surprised but I feel sanguine about all of this.'
London politics
Books
fromAnOther
1 week ago

Polly Barton's Debut Novel Is an All-Consuming Exploration of Obsession

The protagonist navigates intense limerence while exploring self-actualization and cultural themes in Polly Barton's debut novel.
Television
fromSlate Magazine
3 weeks ago

Nicole Kidman's New Crime Show Is Surprisingly Captivating-and Goes Unexpected Places

Nicole Kidman stars as Kay Scarpetta in Amazon Prime's new series adaptation, blending family drama with forensic investigation as Kay confronts a murder matching a serial killer she caught 25 years ago.
Writing
fromBusiness Matters
1 month ago

Mara Naaman: A Literary Voice Shaping Culture

Building a life around ideas means prioritizing process and learning over outcomes and external validation, enabling deeper intellectual and creative growth.
Arts
fromwww.npr.org
3 weeks ago

'Scarpetta' is a captivating murder mystery and a high-wire balancing act

Scarpetta alternates between two timelines with different actresses portraying Kay Scarpetta, supported by strong ensemble performances from established television actors.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks ago

The best recent crime and thrillers review roundup

Killing Me Softly and Whidbey explore complex themes of trauma, morality, and systemic failures in healthcare and society.
Books
fromwww.npr.org
3 weeks ago

Author Luke Kennard talks about his novel, 'Black Bag'

Luke Kennard's novel 'Black Bag' fictionalizes a 1967 psychology experiment where a silent, bagged actor in a classroom gradually becomes liked by students through repeated exposure, exploring how familiarity transforms perception.
Writing
fromPsychology Today
1 month ago

Virginia Woolf and the Reclaiming of Attention

Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness technique demonstrates how attention shapes consciousness and remains relevant to contemporary struggles against digital distraction.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks ago

Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave review a will-they-won't-they queer romance

Almost Life chronicles a decades-long romance between two women beginning in 1970s Paris, exploring queer love, missed opportunities, and the consequences of life choices across different social contexts.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks ago

Better than Wuthering Heights? The Brontes' novels ranked!

Charlotte Brontë's debut novel The Professor was rejected nine times before publication, while her second novel Jane Eyre achieved immediate success, and Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey drew authentically from her governess experience.
Relationships
fromThe New Yorker
1 month ago

Mary Gaitskill on Damage and Defiance

Economic necessity, urban conditions, and contradictory cultural messages pushed many women into sex work, with choice constrained by coercion or gradual entrapment.
New York City
fromThe New Yorker
1 month ago

"Something Familiar," by Mary Gaitskill

A woman returns to New York after years to attend a memorial, carrying deep grief while observing the city's raggedness and a taxi driver's worn humanity.
Books
fromThe New Yorker
3 weeks ago

Patricia Cornwell on Crime and Creativity

Fear is the primary obstacle to creativity; overcoming it and persisting through rejection enables successful creative work.
#literary-fiction
fromwww.theguardian.com
4 weeks ago

A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello review a profound exploration of the inner life

From the outset, in the novel's prologue, Anna tells us she is determined to account for herself and her life. But we are to expect no ordinary narrative, concerned only with actual events, evidence-based or relying on historical data. No, Anna is interested in the climate of the psyche and the vibrations of the soul. Can it be that the very things we cannot quantify or rationalise are what make life meaningful?
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

The best recent crime and thrillers review roundup

Obnoxious jewellery dealer Rodney Manderson has been killed outside the Bowery auction rooms, stabbed through the eye with the Victorian hatpin that his boss, Rose Bowery, has brandished in front of the nation on Bargain Hunt. As she discussed the pin's virtues as a deadly weapon as well as its millinerial uses, the fiercely loyal Rilke decides while feeling grateful to have skipped lunch and trying not to think of jelly to remove it before calling the police.
LGBT
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Saba Sams: I've no interest in reading Wuthering Heights again'

Jacqueline Wilson's unflinching approach to children's literature, alongside works by authors like Gwendoline Riley and Clarice Lispector, demonstrates that literary courage and emotional complexity resonate more powerfully than conventional safety or virtuousness.
fromThe Nation
1 month ago

Barbara Pym's Archaic England

Thatcher rose to power on the back of a campaign to Make Britain Great Again-a promise to reverse the previous two decades of austerity, imperial contraction, and stagnating modernization. By 1979, the country was undeniably in decline-not just materially but on a more ineffable level, too. Divested of the unifying effect of global superpower status, the increasingly dis-United Kingdom's common identity was now an open, and anxious, question.
UK politics
History
fromwww.standard.co.uk
2 months ago

Historian Lucy Worsley believes team have solved Thames Torso murder mystery

Historians identify James Crick, a violent bargeman, as the likely Thames Torso Murderer who dismembered multiple women in late Victorian London.
Agriculture
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

"Kim's Game," by Sadia Shepard

Helen confronts the loss of daily farming routines and identity after selling her land while coping with aging and cherished companionship.
Television
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

I'm a crime writer. Here's why we make the best Traitors contestants

Crime fiction specialists' observational, empathetic, and deceptive-character skills make them natural contestants and formidable analysts on The Traitors.
Books
fromVulture
1 month ago

How Should a White Woman Writer Be?

White women writers from the Dimes Square literary scene are receiving major book launches and media attention, sparking both acclaim and online criticism about nepotism and industry favoritism.
fromVulture
2 months ago

Agatha Christie's Seven Dials Finale Recap: In Which Points Are Made

Everything Bundle has accomplished is substantive and worthy of celebration, but in the course of learning who she can trust and foiling the theft of Dr. Matip's formula, she's lost Jimmy and Loraine, who represented her one remaining connection to Gerry. She's also been forced to reckon with the knowledge that although Lady Caterham loves her, she's never really seen Bundle and her gifts accurately. Worse still, Bundle realizes that she's never really been enough for her mother.
UK politics
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

The Bed Trick by Izabella Scott review a bizarre story of sexual duplicity

In September 2015, Gayle Newland stood trial accused of sex by deception. It was alleged that she created an online identity as a man and used this character, Kye Fortune, to lure another woman into a sexual relationship, which was consummated repeatedly with the assistance of a blindfold and a prosthetic penis. The woman believed she was having sex with Kye until one day her ring caught on his hat and she felt long hair.
US news
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

A Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken review here's how to really write your novel

Trope, POV, backstory, character arc. In the 30 years since I was a student of that benign, pipe-smoking, elbow-patched man of letters Malcolm Bradbury, the private language of creative writing workshops has taken over the world. What writers used to say to small circles of students in an attempt to help them improve their storytelling technique has become a familiar way, often parodic and self-knowing, of interpreting the grand and not-sogrand narratives of our time.
Writing
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

Vigdis Hjorth's Family Secrets

Her writing tends to be classified as virkelighetslitteratur, or "reality fiction," and for good reason. Hjorth makes Norway sound like a small town-the sort of place where your neighbors know you're home if they can see your footsteps in the snow-and the overlap between her life and work has more than once been the literary version of tabloid news there.
Books
Television
fromBoston.com
2 months ago

Separating fact from fiction in the Karen Read Lifetime movie

Lifetime's film condenses Karen Read's three-year legal saga into under 90 minutes, recreating key scenes while taking liberties and omitting details.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Ben Markovits: I used to think any book concerned with people falling in love can't be very good'

Reading shaped formative years through detective stories, fantasy epics, and memoirs that provided companionship and escape during frequent moves and family transitions.
Writing
fromDefector
2 months ago

Michael Connelly Should Stick To Fake Crime | Defector

A cold case consultant claimed to have solved both the Black Dahlia and Zodiac murders, identifying Marvin Merrill from the Zodiac's Z13 cipher.
Television
fromVulture
1 month ago

This Serial-Killer Thriller Looks So Kidmanian

Nicole Kidman headlines Scarpetta, a Prime Video detective series premiering March 11, playing retired medical examiner Kay Scarpetta returning for one final case.
Television
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Lynley review consider it the ultimate undemanding telly

The new TV series Lynley reimagines Elizabeth George's detectives in a contemporary setting, starring Leo Suter as DI Lynley and Sofia Barclay as DS Havers.
Television
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

From Anya Taylor-Joy to Jodie Comer: who will star in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's TV remake?

Sky will remake The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo as an eight-part series; Lisbeth Salander casting is crucial, with Emma Corrin a top suggestion.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

As If by Isabel Waidner review surreal doppelganger story

As the trophy takes the form of an elusive UFO, Corey Fah an outsider unfamiliar with the baffling inner workings of the system is unable to collect or even confirm the award. Waidner has said that the novel was partly inspired by the experience of winning the Goldsmiths prize for their previous work Sterling Karat Gold, and by the ephemeral nature of success, with its unfamiliar contexts of social power and opportunity.
Books
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

The best recent crime and thrillers review roundup

Two contemporary novels probe suburban domesticity, revealing secrets, manipulation, and moral ambiguity through slow-burn suspense and darkly comic plotting.
Books
fromKqed
1 month ago

A New Mother's Descent Into Madness

A Black new mother's descent into paranoia and psychosis amid racial tension and isolation captures the harrowing realities of postpartum experience.
Books
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

Tessa Hadley on the Power of Memory

A lasting friendship rests on shared sensibility, mutual trust to perceive and understand, and an affinity of insight beyond mere shared experiences.
Books
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

'Even the Dead' wraps up John Banville's smart, moody mystery series

Quirke mysteries combine noir darkness with literary prose, following a Dublin coroner confronting trauma, moral ambiguity, and hidden crimes in 1950s settings.
Books
fromenglish.elpais.com
1 month ago

Rachel Reid, the unassuming author of Heated Rivalry' whose universe has taken on a life of its own

Rachel Reid turned niche queer 'hockey smut' romance into a mass phenomenon with the Game Changers series and its HBO adaptation, selling over 650,000 copies.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Seven by Joanna Kavenna review a madcap journey to the limits of philosophy

Seven is an uncategorisable, idea-rich novel blending academic satire, absurdism, travel, and philosophical inquiry through a narrator's quest linked to a mythical game.
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

"This Is How It Happens," by Molly Aitken

You are leaving work, your suit still damp from the morning's downpour, the skin on your palms peeling. You are clutching two supermarket bags, tins of cream soup and tuna knocking against one another. The rain is hard and your anorak is cheap. You are on your way to Stockbridge, to your parents' house, which only your father inhabits now that your mother is gone.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry review a dazzling puzzle-box of a debut

We are initiated into a world in which historically accurate foodstuffs can be ordered online a half oyster shell, the exposed flesh shining as if with the freshest brine, is 31.25 for a single piece and begin to understand one of the most striking things about this novel: its insistence upon detail, its utter specificity, set against a deliberate lack of specificity regarding the larger details that the reader's mind naturally itches to fill in.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

More heartache than Hamnet?: Maggie O'Farrell's best books ranked!

The ghost of a previous lover is always a challenge, particularly if you (mistakenly) believe that she's actually dead. This is the unenviable situation for Lily, the protagonist of O'Farrell's second novel, who is swept off her feet by dashing architect Marcus and in short order moves in with him. Lily takes his assurances that her predecessor Sinead is no longer with us to mark a more permanent absence;
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

I could never hope to equal it again': Jeffrey Archer announces next novel will be his last

When I came across the idea for this novel a few years ago, I knew it was bigger in scope than anything I'd done before and I accepted that the research alone would be more demanding than anything I'd tackled in the past. When I finally sat down to write Adam and Eve I also realised, by the end of the first draft, that this was going to be my final novel,
Books
Books
fromEngadget
1 month ago

What to read this weekend: The unsettling new horror novel, Persona

A trans woman uncovers non-consensual pornography of herself and is drawn into escalating horrors involving identity, exploitation, internet influence, and economic precarity.
Books
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

The Gospel According to Emily Henry

Emily Henry channels rom-com sensibility and religious upbringing to create a fresh, cinematic-influenced romance novel blending humor, nostalgia, and emotional depth.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Rebel English Academy by Mohammed Hanif review a sure-fire Booker contender

Dark, irony-soaked comedy and farce expose Pakistan's political repression, religious hypocrisy, and violence with subversive, satirical imagination.
Books
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

"The Quiet House," by Tessa Hadley

An elderly Geraldine reflects on youthful memories of Mattie, mixing nostalgia, loss, and the contrast between past admiration and present solitude.
Books
fromwww.newyorker.com
2 months ago

Tessa Hadley Reads John McGahern

Tessa Hadley reads John McGahern’s 'Gold Watch'; she has published thirteen books including Bad Dreams and After the Funeral, and won the 2016 Windham-Campbell Prize.
Books
fromAnOther
2 months ago

Makenna Goodman's New Book Is a Gripping Portrait of a Disgraced Professor

Explores who gets to live the 'good life', interrogating rural idylls, identity, empathy, cancel culture, obsession, and the complexities of love.
fromJezebel
1 month ago

Jezebel's February Book Pick: A Story Collection About Living in the Shadow of the Troubles

Liadan Ní Chuinn was born in Northern Ireland in 1998, the year the Good Friday Agreement ended the Troubles, the decades of violence stemming from England's occupation of Ireland. Other recent fiction about the Troubles-the novels and Trespasses , the TV show Derry Girls (all excellent)-is set firmly in the last century, relegating the violence to history. Ní Chuinn's work does the opposite: Their new book of short stories, Every One Still Her e, is set in contemporary Northern Ireland.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Your Life Without Me by James Meek review angel of destruction haunts a domestic drama

A great demolition is also an act of creation, so long as its execution is bold and impressive enough, so long as it clears out the dead wood and opens up the terrain. It's the ethos that links Pablo Picasso to 1970s punk, Shiva the Destroyer to the anarchist hero of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. Rip it up and start again. Or rip it up for the pure thrill of the ripping.
Books
#julian-barnes
Books
fromEsquire
2 months ago

George Saunders Wants a Good Death

George Saunders' novel Vigil centers on mortality and a CEO's final night, and contemplating death energizes him rather than obsesses him.
Books
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

The influence of the sleeper hit novel 'The Correspondent'

An epistolary novel follows a divorced woman in her 70s through letters that reveal her cranky, resilient personality and surprising late-life adventures.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Sarah Moss: I never liked Wuthering Heights as much as Jane Eyre'

Early reading experiences and family support shaped lasting literary tastes, identity, and critical awareness, prompting later reassessments of values and perspectives.
fromVulture
2 months ago

Colleen Hoover Insists Her New Book Isn't About Herself

Out today, Woman Down centers on writer Petra Rose, an author who has writer's block and checks into a remote cabin to finish her next book. Petra, who took a hiatus after fans blamed her for a producer's decision to cut a fan-favorite character out of the film adaptation of her book A Terrible Thing, has "learned the hard way what happens when the internet turns on you," a synopsis states.
Books
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