The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley review – a seriously fun sci-fi romcom
Ella Risbridger
Fiction
Brotherless Night by VV Ganeshananthan review – heartbreak in war-torn Sri Lanka
Yagnishsing Dawoor
Shortlisted for the Women’s prize, this epic account of a country and a family torn apart combines the intimacy of a memoir with the urgency of reportage
Poetry roundup
The best recent poetry – review roundup
David Wheatley
Come Here to This Gate by Rory Waterman; Are You There by Samantha Fain; Silver by Rowan Ricardo Phillips; All the Good Things You Deserve by Elaine Feeney; Poems 2016-2024 by JH Prynne
Fiction
Enlightenment by Sarah Perry review – cosmic strangeness
Beejay Silcox
Fiction
Manny and the Baby by Varaidzo review – dreamy debut of loss and unrequited love
Kadish Morris
Fiction
This Is How You Remember It by Catherine Prasifka review – an innocent online
Jo Hamya
Fiction
The Two Loves of Sophie Strom by Sam Taylor review – a sliding doors tale of survival
Christopher Shrimpton
Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.
Margaret Atwood on censorship, literary feuds and Trump
Rebecca F Kuang
I like to write to my friends in the style of Joan Didion
The author of bestseller Yellowface on her agent’s fears about publishing the novel, the joys of a social media purge and being a workaholic who gets bored easily
Moses McKenzie
Reading Ulysses my first thought was, man’s taken a lot of drugs
The award-winning Bristol-raised novelist on his new book about a teenage Rastafarian living in the city in volatile times, how he was influenced by The Catcher in the Rye - and being celebrated by a Tory politician
‘My favourite stories are love stories’
Emily Henry on her enemies-to-lovers relationship with romance fiction
‘The writer of Fifty Shades gave me tips’
Robinne Lee on her scorching bonkbuster The Idea of You
George the Poet
Poetry is the artistic wing of politics
Jo Hamya
Could I just write one massive grey area?
Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.
Regulars
The books of my life
Abir Mukherjee: ‘Frederick Forsyth and Jeffrey Archer were my gateway drugs into reading for pleasure’
Big idea
The big idea: why we need human rights now more than ever
In an age of climate crisis and AI, equal treatment is nothing less than essential
Where to start with
Where to start with: Franz Kafka
Inscrutable bureaucracy and monstrous insects may not sound immediately appealing, but once you’re lost in Kafka’s world you won’t want to escape
Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.
You may have missed
Should plants be given rights?
What new botanical breakthroughs could mean
Paul Auster remembered
A literary voice for the ages
Franz Kafka
What we learn about Kafka from his uncensored diaries
Safe haven or symbol of injustice?
What our gardens tell us about the world we live in
Olivia Laing
Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.
