bestsellers
Reading the classics should be a joy, not a duty
Edwin Frank’s survey of 20th-century fiction stresses the po-faced seriousness of the great novel. But many masterpieces revel in the ridiculous – or are about nothing at all
Secrets of the dorm: Come and Get It, by Kiley Reid, reviewed
An academic who also writes a column for a teen magazine eavesdrops on the conversations of rich university students and reproduces them for readers to sneer at
Anatomy of a bestseller
Every four seconds, somewhere in the world, a Lee Child book is sold. This phenomenal statistic places Child alongside Stephen…
The road to bestsellerdom
Christopher Maclehose recalls his dealings with the author of the Flashman novels, George Macdonald Fraser
