Gay superheroes soar into comic book battle
Marvel plans same-sex marriage while DC comics says established character is to come outComic book crime-fighters the X-Men are taking a break from saving the day in order to attend the first same-sex marriage in the superhero world, set for June.Publi...
Orange to withdraw sponsorship of women’s prize for fiction
Mobile services company will not be renewing its sponsorship of the book awards that have borne its name for 17 yearsIn one of the biggest upsets in literary prize history, the mobile services company Orange has announced this morning that it will not ...
The Hairy Ape – review
Southwark Playhouse, LondonHell on earth is currently to be found in Southwark Playhouse, where director Kate Budgen makes her mark with a feverish and visually arresting revival of Eugene O'Neill's grimy 1922 expressionistic drama.A classic story of a...
Has the diamond jubilee increased the number of ‘royal’ books?
'Books like these are a very useful way to convey something of the optimism of the moment as well as picking out snippets of information about events'Has the Queen's diamond jubilee increased the number of books indulging fantasies about being royal or...
Poem of the week: City Boy by Peter Daniels
A young financier taking a drunken tumble might have been an easy target, but this gentle poem has no interest in blame gamesThis week's poem, City Boy, is by Peter Daniels and appears in his recently published first collection, Counting Eggs (Mulfran ...
Which superhero is about to come out as gay?
A DC Comics insider says an established character will be revealed as gay. Who could it be?The smart money is on Batman or Aquaman or Wonder Woman but, frankly, a case could be made for all or any of them: who is the comic book superhero who has been s...
Paperback Q&A: Ian Rankin on The Impossible Dead
The crime writer reveals the research underpinning his second Malcolm Fox novel – and the strict plan that yields a book a yearHow did you come to write The Impossible Dead?I was reading a newspaper and saw mention of a lawyer called William McRae. H...
Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland by Harvey Pekar and Joseph Remnant – review
By James SmartThe stubborn, eloquent and curious Pekar spent his life in Cleveland, Ohio, working as a clerk and writing comics that celebrated the strangeness of everyday life. He died in 2010, and this posthumous graphic work is half straightforward ...
Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age by Kurt W Beyer
By PD SmithGrace Hopper, who became a "coder" (or programmer) in the 1940s, was one of the great pioneers of the computer age. In 1934 she had been the first woman in Yale's 233-year history to graduate with a doctorate in maths. After Pearl Harbor, sh...
Orange is not the only fruit: why book prizes, not sponsors, matter to writers
Orange's decision to withdraw its sponsorship of the women's prize for fiction is not the end of the world. What matters is not what the prize is called, but what it representsWaiting with the five other shortlisted novelists 12 years ago, as the chair...
