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Editor's picks
Poet Jackie Kay  
I could have been brought up by Tories!
I could have been brought up by Tories!
‘The anti-pet of bourgeois life’  
Why the world needs big cat energy
Why the world needs big cat energy
Sunjeev Sahota  
I’ve always been in labour movements – but I’m critical of identity politics
I’ve always been in labour movements – but I’m critical of identity politics
Translated fiction  
Latin American authors on rise in International Booker prize lists
Latin American authors on rise in International Booker prize lists
The books of my life  
Marian Keyes: ‘Books have one shot to impress me and if you miss, you miss’
Marian Keyes: ‘Books have one shot to impress me and if you miss, you miss’
Sad girl novels  
The dubious branding of women’s emotive fiction
The dubious branding of women’s emotive fiction
Books of the week
How to Make a Bomb by Rupert Thomson review – a stark study of male rage
How to Make a Bomb by Rupert Thomson review – a stark study of male rage
The destructive desires of an inoffensive family man drive this subversive satire of existentialism
An African History of Africa by Zeinab Badawi review – an insider’s take
The journalist and broadcaster offers a refreshing corrective to narratives imposed on the continent by others
A Body Made of Glass by Caroline Crampton review – anatomy of hypochondria
Memoir, cultural history and bleak humour characterise this brilliant personal exploration of health anxiety
Levitation for Beginners by Suzannah Dunn review – the dark side of a 70s childhood
The village life of a 10-year-old girl is disrupted by a newcomer in a tale of youthful mystery and shifting emotions
Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah by Ian Buruma review – a man of his time… and ours
A brisk and engaging biography of Baruch Spinoza, the man who inspired many secular Jewish thinkers, is least convincing when it offers him as an example of ‘cancel culture’
Spotlight
Lynne Reid Banks remembered by Michael Morpurgo
‘She was like an auntie to me’  
Lynne Reid Banks remembered by Michael Morpurgo
The astonishing breadth of her writing was a great inspiration – as was she, in her passionate advocacy for children’s books
Talking points and news
‘So it’s you. Here you are’: Salman Rushdie describes moment he was stabbed
‘So it’s you. Here you are’: Salman Rushdie describes moment he was stabbed
In first TV interview since his stabbing, writer tells how knifeman was ‘last thing my right eye would ever see’
Alexei Navalny’s memoir due to be published posthumously in October
The Russian opposition politician, who died in prison in February, completed an autobiography which will come out later this year
Bernardine Evaristo joins calls to save Goldsmiths’ Black British literature MA
Booker-winning author says course ‘shouldn’t be seen as dispensable’ as university seeks to cut 130 academic jobs
Meta ‘discussed buying publisher Simon & Schuster to train AI’
Audio shared with the New York Times appears to record executives discussing purchase of the US books giant to feed into its large language models
Six ‘implicitly optimistic’ novels make the International Booker prize shortlist
From books about disintegrating relationships and countries to a worker’s-eye view of Korea and a story of farmers in Brazil, the selected titles engage with current realities, say the judging panel
From the archive
In praise of novels without neat conclusions
Endless fascination  
In praise of novels without neat conclusions
Tidy narrative closure may be entertaining, but loose ends and ambiguity offer a truer sense of real life
 
Guardian Live

Colm Tóibín: Long Island

Thursday 23 May 2024, 7pm – 8.30pm BST
The Irish novelist will join us - live in London and online - to introduce Long Island, the sequel to his much-loved novel, Brooklyn.

 
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