The Latest Breaking News on Books

Publisher says expecting authors, agents and editors to secure blurbs can create ‘an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent’

The retailer is in talks to sell its 500 high street stores, which could be a ‘nail in the coffin for British writers’

The poems, notebooks, photos and letters of James Alexander ‘Hamish’ Mann are valued at £3,000 to £4,000.

Modern Poetry and Frank: Sonnets by Diane Seuss; That Broke Into Shining Crystals by Richard Scott; My Secret Life by Krisztina Tóth; The Grimoire of Grimalkin by Sascha Aurora Akhtar; Flood by Jessica Mookherjee

The stark differences between two brothers are thrown into relief as they navigate grief in this moving novel from the Normal People author

The Irish author on Enid Blyton at bedtimes, discovering Dickens, and the brilliance of Edna O’Brien

INTERVIEW: The Cambridge student was only 24 when she released her ostentatious debut. Critics and fellow writers fell over themselves with enthusiasm, hailing Smith the voice of fiction’s future. Now, 25 years later, the author speaks to Nick Duerden about the book that changed her life

The perma-dieting, toxic man-loving heroine is easily written off as a product of her time. Claudia Cockerell on why she’s more relevant than ever

W. Maxwell Prince and Martin Morazzo's anthology welcomes some new writers