Michael Ondaatje

‘Writers all want to be rock stars’: Booker winner Shehan Karunatilaka on ghosts, war and childish dreams

Set during the Sri Lankan civil war and narrated by a dead man, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is part murder mystery, part political satire and part love story. Its author recalls the grim events that inspired it – and the editor who kept pushing him to do better

Lisa Allardice

18, Oct, 2022 @5:11 PM

From Paradise Lost to the Lord of the Rings: top 10 epics in fiction | Stephanie Sy-Quia

From classic tales such as Paradise Lost to ‘counter-epics’ by Anne Carson and Tim O’Brien, these stories lend real grandeur to their subjects

Stephanie Sy-Quia

10, Nov, 2021 @11:51 AM

Top 10 true crime novels | Denise Mina

Adding an intense layer of meaning to well-known facts, authors including Truman Capote, Kate Summerscale and Gordon Burn raise this genre far above its grubby reputation

Denise Mina

20, Oct, 2021 @11:00 AM

Top 10 bookworms in fiction | Cathy Rentzenbrink

If you’re reading a novel, the chances are you’ll be able to relate to characters who love reading, too. These works showcase some of literature’s finest bibliophiles

Cathy Rentzenbrink

11, Aug, 2021 @11:00 AM

The sexiest moments in literature that aren't sex scenes

With the Bad sex in fiction award cancelled this year, we celebrate authors from Jeanette Winterson to Jane Austen who can charge the dryest scenes with sensuality

Sam Jordison

11, Dec, 2020 @12:04 PM

Top authors hope you’ll give this book away to change young lives

Philip Pullman, Robert Macfarlane and 21 others give backing to literacy charity Room to Read in new anthology the Gifts of Reading

Donna Ferguson

27, Sep, 2020 @8:45 AM

Top 10 books about building cities | Jonathan Carr

From Mary Beard’s Roman history to Kim Stanley Robinson’s science fiction, Jonathan Carr chooses the best writing about citizens’ eternal challenges

Jonathan Carr

13, Mar, 2019 @12:25 PM

How did the sports book of the year fail to select a winner? | Mark Lawson

Literary prizes aren’t meant to split decisions, but as a judge I felt it made sense for Paul Gibson and Tom Gregory to draw, just as it had when I helped decide the Booker

Mark Lawson

27, Nov, 2018 @5:21 PM

Choose your book of 2018 for us to read this December

Whether it was Michael Ondaatje to Michelle Obama, tell us which book published this year you feel everyone should know

Sam Jordison

27, Nov, 2018 @9:35 AM

Man Booker prize shortlist narrows the field – and also its sights?

The longlist for this year’s award had a daring reach, but the final six contenders return readers to rather more conventional territory

Sian Cain

20, Sep, 2018 @4:55 PM

Man Booker prize 2018 longlist includes graphic novel for the first time

Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina, which explores the disappearance of a young woman, ‘does just what good fiction should do’ – and will compete with Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight

Alison Flood

23, Jul, 2018 @11:01 PM

‘It's the book that gave me freedom’: Michael Ondaatje on The English Patient

The novel has been translated into 38 languages and the film scooped nine Oscars. Now, as The English Patient wins the Golden Booker prize – voted readers’ favourite in 50 years – the author reveals why he could never have been a writer if he’d stayed in Britain

Aida Edemariam

09, Jul, 2018 @5:03 PM