On writing: authors reveal the secrets of their craft
How do you set about writing a novel? What inspires a poem? Pencil or computer? Pain or pleasure? Listen in to interviews with some of our most celebrated writers recorded for the British Library, and enter our competition to identify the mys...
Preview: authors reveal the secrets of their craft
How do you set about writing a novel? What inspires a poem? Pencil or computer? Pain or pleasure? In a preview from tomorrow's Guardian Review, listen to Ian McEwan, Howard Jacobson, Ian Rankin, Hilary Mantel and Beryl Bainbridge, and enter our competi...
The Writing Life: Ian Rankin
Ian Rankin talks about structuring a crime novel in an extract from the British Library CD The Writing LifeTim Maby
Further Reading – Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
Recently released, Started Early, Took My Dog comes from acclaimed author Kate Atkinson, who wrote When Will There Be Good News. This novel follows the star of many her other novels, detective Jackson Brodie, but also follows the story of Tracy Waterhouse, who suddenly becomes the mother to a young girl after a surprising event....
The great books giveaway
On Saturday 5 March, a million books will be given away across the UK in the first ever World Book Night. We asked writers which books they give as gifts and which they've been most pleased to receive. And children's authors recommended books to give t...
Life after Rebus: Ian Rankin turns his hand to the comic strip
Best-selling crime writer pens murder story with a twist for CLiNT magazineIan Rankin, one of Britain's biggest-selling crime writers who sparked alarm and grief among his fans when he retired his hard-boiled policeman John Rebus, will this week make a...
All-star literary quiz
Test your literary knowledge with a fiendish set of questions from our panel of writers including Iain Banks, Jilly Cooper, David Hare, Nick Hornby, Lorrie Moore and Will Self. Readers with the highest scores will go into a draw for a set of five of th...
Musicians, writers and their obsessions
They're not the best songs. They might not even be good ones. But they become the tracks we play again and again. Here, musicians and writers share their obsessionsIan Rankin (novelist)Van Morrison, Hard Nose the Highway (1973 LP)1989. I'd been living ...
Dan Brown tops Oxfam’s ‘least wanted’ chart
For the second year running, the bestselling author's books are the most-donated to the charity shop chainDan Brown has hung on to the dubious honour of being the author whose books readers most want to get rid of, topping the list of writers most-dona...
From Stieg Larsson to Trainspotting: the best modern literary book tours
You've read the decade's hottest books. Now visit the locationsTired of traditional destinations, a growing number of avid readers have been allowing their literary tastes to dictate their holidays this summer. But rather than the usual Stratford-upon...
Dr Jekyll and Mr Rankin
Published in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson drafted The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in which Mr Hyde, the terrifying alter-ego of the respectable Dr Jekyll, wreaks violent havoc on the streets of London, over a few days while confined to bed. ...
