The Latest Breaking News from Maggie OFarrell

“It’s a common turn of phrase to speak of getting lost in a book … a book can also be where one finds oneself,” writes Rebecca Mead.

The author on being mesmerised by The Virgin Suicides, the life‑changing Toni Morrison – and the book that’s too devastating to reread

Initially slow, the show about Shakespeare and his family weaves a beguiling narrative web around the creation of life and art

Authors, critics and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

Kingsolver’s ‘Demon Copperhead’ won by unanimous decision

Winning for Demon Copperhead, a ‘deeply powerful’, US-set Dickens update, the American novelist becomes the first writer to win the contest for a second time

Historical novel The Marriage Portrait has sold 72,819 copies – more than any other title on the 2023 Women’s prize shortlist

From stories about the US opioid crisis, to novels set in 16th century Italy, this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist has something for everyone

First-time novelists are joined by two former winners on the diverse list, as the six ‘ambitious and hard-hitting’ contenders are revealed

The RSC has reopened its refurbished Swan Theatre with an eagerly anticipated adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling novel Hamnet, said Sam Marlowe in The Stage. As “snug and supple” a fit for the Stratford stage as one of the bespoke gloves made by William Shakespeare’s bullying father, it imagines the…

The Time Traveler’s Wife and Hamnet are among novels written, and largely read, by women coming to the British stage