Booker prize
Art conquers all: The Disappearers by Marlon James, reviewed
In this Booker-shortlisted novel, Jamaica is a place where being gay is a matter of survival. It is about the lasting effects of violence and the immediate pleasure of sex, but its ultimate message is that art can give us the strength to live
The last chapter: Departure(s), by Julian Barnes, reviewed
Aged 80, the Booker prize-winning novelist bids farewell to his devoted readers in a masterpiece of narrative trickery
Diary
After the shale gas vote, I was literally sent to Coventry – to visit the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre. It…
Diary
It’s been a great week for the powerful fantasies of fiction (see more below), but over the weekend no novel…
A beady eye
At one time, Penelope Lively was routinely shortchanged by critics. Her protagonists are often middle-class professionals — historians, archeologists, scriptwriters…
Two sides of the Storey
Jasper Rees remembers David Storey, giant of postwar English culture and wry teller of tales, whose newly published memoir is perhaps his most remarkable work
Diary
Four years ago, I bought a ranch in Wyoming. Not that I was tired of New York, but I’m fascinated…
An enjoyably gossipy whisk through half a century of fierce rivalries and bruised egos
At the beginning of Barneys, Books and Bust Ups: 50 Years of the Booker Prize (BBC4), Kirsty Wark’s voiceover promised…
A guide to the Man Booker longlist
The Man Booker prize has strong years and weak years. There have been ones when the judges have succeeded in…
