Heavy hitter from left field
British readers worried that US bestselling novel The Art of Fielding is purely about baseball can allay their fears. The sport is in the book to focus on the hero's very public crisis, says the authorThe Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach's debut novel of ...
Reader reviews roundup
An elegant review of Sarah Hall's The Beautiful Indifference, and differing opinions on a Hebridean murder mystery and Jack Kerouac's On the RoadFirst up this week, ElizabethBaines' really elegant and compelling review of Sarah Hall's recent short stor...
Have we fallen out of love with John Updike?
Three years after John Updike's death, his reputation appears to be on the wane. But who else can match his deftness and grace?Happy news from across the water. 117 Philadelphia Ave, Shillington, childhood home of John Updike, has been bought by the U...
Maurice Sendak’s stories opened the door to the Wild Things
The fiercely private writer and illustrator's gloriously unsentimental books achieved that rare thing in children's literature – a place in our collective consciousnessSad, sad news: Maurice Sendak, the prolific children's writer and illustrator best...
Reader reviews roundup
Wilkie Collins, Bruce Chatwin and the inimitable Herge win over our readers this weekGreetings, critics. How goes it? Before we begin, let me say that the Friday task of selecting the reviews of the week is one of the few consolations of returning from...
In the world
'When we step outside and look up, we're not little cogs in the capitalist machine. It's the simplest act of resistance and renewal'When Kathleen Jamie's first collection of essays, Findings, came out in 2005, no one – least of all its author – was...
Reader reviews roundup
Reviews of a biography of Edward Thomas and a novel about modern-day Guyana make the grade this weekA neat little review of Matthew Hollis's Costa prize-winning biography of Edward Thomas, Now All Roads Lead to France, caught my eye this week. Partly b...
Reader reviews roundup
Reviews of a biography of Edward Thomas and a novel about modern-day Guyana make the grade this weekA neat little review of Matthew Hollis's Costa prize-winning biography of Edward Thomas, Now All Roads Lead to France, caught my eye this week. Partly b...
Tell us your favourite love poems (again)
For the second time in a month, we're in the mood for love. Which are your favourite love poems?"What has been will be again," says the speaker in the book of Ecclesiastes, "what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun." Tr...
Reader reviews roundup
All the way back to the birth of the modern novel in this week's reader reviewsExciting times in the realm of reader reviews this week: we have an appreciation of the world's first modern novel (probably, allegedly), and it's a corker. EKareno takes us...
Keep Calm and Carry On: The secret history
How Barter Books uncovered the massive second world war poster campaign that nobody ever sawEver wondered where those nowadays-ubiquitous Keep Calm and Carry On posters first came from? Nope, me neither – and frankly, more fool both of us. Someone po...
Reader reviews roundup
This week's digest of our favourite reader reviews sees Suzanne Collins, Terry Pratchett and Lawrence Durrell in the firing lineHello and welcome to the second instalment of our almost-but-not-quite-weekly roundup of reader reviews. Sorry we didn't man...
