John Cheever

Jonathan Ames (Photo: Getty)

The best Jeeves and Wooster novel Saul Bellow never wrote

11 July 2015 9:00 am

Wake Up, Sir! is the latest novel by the American humourist Jonathan Ames; the book first appeared in the States…

No worries: John Updike in his late fifties, on the beach at Swampscott, Mass

Up close and personal

26 April 2014 9:00 am

In recycling his most intimate encounters as fiction – including amazing feats of promiscuity in small-town New England – John Updike drew unashamedly on his own experiences for inspiration, says Philip Hensher

A Trip to Echo Spring, by Olivia Laing - review

10 August 2013 9:00 am

The boozer’s life is one of low self-esteem and squalid self-denial. It was memorably evoked by Charles Jackson in his…