Latest features and reviews

<p>Bestselling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, who wrote ‘A Woman of Substance’, has died at the age of 91</p>

Tribute

Barbara Taylor Bradford embodied the intrepid, rags-to-riches heroines of her of novels

The Leeds-born writer was as famous for her lavish lifestyle as she was for her formidable work ethic. After her death at age 91, Claire Allfree remembers a woman and author who flouted convention and evaded categories

<p>Turn back time: Cher – photographed here in the Seventies – has just released her first memoir</p>

The reading list

Cher’s flat new book exposes the limits of the ghostwritten memoir

<p>Joan Didion (left) and Eve Babitz have become symbols of literary cool </p>

The Reading List

The uneasy bond between Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, two very different literary ‘it girls’

<p>‘Johanna was my closest friend, but she was also like a younger sister. Some sort of unspoken authority was vested in me, some sort of wild freedom in her’ </p>

Extract

Sigrid Rausing: ‘We – the living – are the ghosts haunting the dead’

<p>Our guide to the books you’ll want to give as gifts this Christmas </p>

Five writers on the five books they’d give for Christmas

The Countdown

Best biographies and memoirs of 2024: It-girls, art fraud and grief

<p>Author Samantha Harvey, with her Booker Prize-winning novel ‘Orbital’ </p>

Comment

The inconvenient truth about this year’s Booker Prize winner

<p>Readers’ history: Orlando Reade’s new book explores the response to ‘Paradise Lost’ over the centuries </p>

the reading list

The book unearthing the subversive history of Paradise Lost

The Countdown

The best historical fiction of 2024, from Robert Harris to Colm Tóibín

<p>Must-reads: our guide to the best fiction of 2024 </p>

The Countdown

The best fiction of 2024: from Sally Rooney to Percival Everett

<p>November’s biggest releases include a new novel from Jonathan Coe and a history of Hollywood told through box office flops </p>

Features

The best new books to read this November

<p>‘If you’re not making someone money, they sure as f*** don’t look after you’</p>

interview

Vanessa Feltz: ‘My ex of 16 years was an utter publicity fiend’

Reviews

<p>Compelling: Dalrymple highlights India’s ‘often forgotten position’ as a motor of global trade in ancient and early medieval times </p>

The history book that will transform your view of early civilisation

<p>The admission of ‘goofs’ is about as near as Johnson gets to self-discovery </p>

Boris Johnson’s memoir Unleashed is twisted, sour and full of lies

<p>Soulful: the new novel from Rooney deals with grief and age-gap relationships </p>

Sally Rooney ditches style that made her ‘voice of a generation’

<p>Tom Bower’s new book fails to shed much new light on the power couple </p>

Tom Bower’s Posh and Becks exposé won’t spice up your life

Lists

<p>Thriller: Meghann Fahy is part of ‘The Perfect Couple’s starry cast </p>

Love The Perfect Couple? These are the books and TV shows to try next

<p>With the rise of Instagram and BookTok, the importance of aesthetics in literature is on the rise </p>

Don’t judge a book by its cover: 15 of the most iconic book covers

<p>Fiction highlights for the year ahead including Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘lost’ novel and new titles from Stephen King and Emily Henry </p>

The best fiction to read in 2024

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