Books of the Year

This week, how well does Alan Hollinghurst's novel The Line of Beauty translate to the stage? And Toby Lichtig interviews the newest winner of the Booker Prize, David Szalay.'The Line of Beauty', by Jack Holden, based on the novel by Alan Hollinghurst, Almeida Theatre, London, un ... Show More

This week, Terri Apter reviews a quartet of books exploring the impact of parenthood on identity, particularly for women; and we revisit Helen Garner, as she wins the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.'Four Mothers: A year of motherhood around the world', by Abigail Leonard'T ... Show More

This week, Lily Herd introduces us to the concept of Fascist Yoga; and Mark Storey on America’s ghosts.‘Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread’, by Leila Taylor‘Haunted States: An American Gothic Guidebook’, by Miranda CorcoranProduced by Charlotte Pardy Hosted ... Show More

Dystopias are a longstanding staple of film and literature, particularly science fiction, but what can we learn from them? Do they simply entrench despair or act as a prompt to improve the world? And what do The Two Ronnies have to do with all this? As a stage adaptation of Kay D ... Show More

<p>“Severance” is an office drama with a twist: the central characters have undergone a procedure to separate their work selves (“innies,” in the parlance of the show) from their home selves (“outies”). The Apple TV+ series is just the latest cultural offering to explore how the ... Show More

The categories religion and race share a common genealogy. The modern understanding of these terms emerges within the European enlightenment but grasping their gradual production requires us to investigate further. In Modern Religion, Modern Race (Oxford University Press, 2016), ... Show More

Jane Ellen Harrison was Britain’s first female career academic, a maverick public intellectual burdened with the label ‘the cleverest woman in England’. Her quips and quirks became legendary, but many of those anecdotes were promulgated by Harrison herself. Mary Beard joins Tom t ... Show More

James Graham is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter for TV and film. His plays include Ink, This House and Dear England, about the struggles and successes of England’s former football manager Gareth Southgate. His acclaimed TV dramas include Quiz and Sherwood, set in the ... Show More

One hundred years after his birth this month’s World Book Club, will be discussing Albert Camus' seminal novel The Outsider with his acclaimed biographer Oliver Todd, and Professor of French at Sheffield University, David Walker. And appropriately the programme comes from the hea ... Show More

Thackeray's comic masterpiece, 'Vanity Fair', is a Victorian novel looking back to Regency England as an object both of satire and nostalgia. Thackeray’s disdain for the Regency is present throughout the book, not least in the proliferation of hapless characters called George, ye ... Show More

The A13 runs from the City of London past Tilbury Docks and the site of the Dagenham Ford factory to Benfleet and the Wat Tyler Country Park. As he travels along it, talking to residents about their ideas of community and change, New Generation Thinker Dan Taylor reflects on the ... Show More

Steven Knight CBE is a screenwriter, producer, and director for film and television. He is best known for creating the TV series Peaky Blinders but he has also turned his hand to feature films, novels, comedy and even gameshows. He co-created the global TV quiz show Who Wants to ... Show More