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Editors' picks

- Rising tide
  
  Podcast: We take the plunge with Simon Armitage's water poems, Callum Roberts's prescription to save our oceans and a new tale from the riverbank
- Becoming a Londoner by David Plante
  
  Review: David Plante's diary of his friendship with Stephen Spender is a powerful portrait of love set in the liberal London of the 60s, writes Lara Feigel
- Old school
  
  News: A new study by the National Literary Trust shows children find reading 'embarrassing' and are opting for video instead
- It is easy to criticise social media if you're published and comfortable about your fan base
  lakyfied
  commenting on Jonathan Franzen falls foul of twitterati after scorning social media
- In praise of adultery
  
  Nick and Meg go to Paris to celebrate their 30th anniversary only to confront some uncomfortable questions. In his new film, Le Week-End, Hanif Kureishi meditates on the age-old problem of marriage and desire
- A year without email
  
  Jon McGregor has stepped away from the keyboard, and rediscovered the simple pleasure of putting pen to paper
  - Jonathan Franzen falls foul of twitterati after scorning social media
- How to draw ... hares
  
  Gallery: Jackie Morris helps you to hone your painting skills and draw the hero of her new book, Song of the Golden Hare
- The first non-fiction
  
  Tom Holland: The father of history is not only hugely entertaining but has an amazing capacity to renew himself
- The age of Amazon still needs editors like Max Perkins
  
  Gavin James Bower: PDFs may have replaced galley proofs, but Hemingway's editor still has lessons to teach the literary world
- Poster poems: anything goes
  
  Billy Mills: Why would you want to write a poem? There's only one way to find out. Post your couplets, sonnets and limericks here on any subject under the sun
  - National Poetry Day - quiz
  - John Hegley's top 10 children's poetry books
- Choose October's Reading group book
  
  Sam Jordison: With Halloween on the way, it's a good time to choose a scary story. Vote on the blog for what you'd like to read
- 'A good little band'
  
  Review: John Harris on Tune In, the first volume of the long-awaited and definitive biography by 'Beatles oracle' Mark Lewisohn, which takes the band up to 1962
- In It Together: The Inside Story of the Coalition Government
  
  Review: Gaby Hinsliff on a book full of fascinating insights into how Cameron, Osborne and Clegg really work together
- Johnny Alucard by Kim Newman
  
  Review: Paul McAuley on a compulsively readable mashup of vampire legend and alternate history that offers a satirical version of the 1980s
- Dare to be a David
  
  Review: David Runciman on Malcolm Gladwell's flawed manifesto for the underdog, premised on the David and Goliath story
- Solo by William Boyd
  
  Review: Richard Williams on an authentically written attempt to resurrect James Bond that entertains more than it exasperates
- Great Britain's Great War by Jeremy Paxman
  
  Review: Ian Jack on a fine introduction to the part Britain played in the first of the worst two wars in history

Latest news

Crap Towns title goes to 'hated' London

5 Oct 2013: Capital beats Bradford and Chipping Norton to No 1 spot in Crap Towns Returns, while previous winner Hull drops out of top 50
Waterstones can live with Amazon and stem losses, says James Daunt

5 Oct 2013: The feelgood factor has returned to the high-street chain, but is stocking the Kindle like inviting a fox into the henhouse?
Morrissey inks memoir deal with Penguin Classics

5 Oct 2013:
Waterstones predicts the Smiths frontman's forthcoming Autobiography will be a top seller at Christmas
Michael Hastings' novel The Last Magazine to be published posthumously

5 Oct 2013:
Publisher announces book by award-winning journalist who died in June, based on his experience as a magazine intern
William Burroughs and Tom Wolfe headline beat literature auction

4 Oct 2013:
Vial once containing methadone prescribed to Burroughs and first edition of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test among sale items

More books news

Regular series

Art and design 14hr 22min ago

Malcolm Morley: 'The moment anyone said my work was art, I had this block – I took a long time to find myself'

The arts interview: the Turner prizewinner talks to Nicholas Wroe about therapy, model ships and how love on a bus led him to New York
Reading group 1 day ago

Choose October's Reading group book

With Halloween on the way, it's a good time to choose a scary story. Vote on the blog for what you'd like to read
True crime 2 days ago

Charles Graeber's top 10 true crime books

The true crime genre has a bad reputation, often providing pulp with tabloid appeal, but there are some stone-cold classics, writes Charles Graeber
More books series

Latest blogposts

Books blog

Reader reviews roundup

5 Oct 2013:
City life meets nature studies in this week's roundup of reader reviews
Books blog

National Poetry Day as it happened

4 Oct 2013: Follow how National Poetry Day unfolded
Books blog

Record books: Art Garfunkel's reading matter revealed – now who's next?

3 Oct 2013: Liz Bury: Garfunkel's reading list from 1968 onwards is available online, and it's strong on the classics. But who else's book collection would you like to see?
Books blog

Women in trousers: fiction's sartorial trailblazers

2 Oct 2013:
From Agatha Christie to Bridget Jones women wearing trousers has been a developing story in the world of fiction. Who were the pioneers of the pant?
Books blog

Under the Volcano: fuelling a thirst for Malcolm Lowry

1 Oct 2013: Sam Jordison: This book has whetted an appetite for more Lowry – luckily there are some fantastic online resources to aid further study

Talking points

- Poster poems: anything goes for National Poetry Day
  
  Billy Mills: Why would you want to write a poem? There's only one way to find out. Post your couplets, sonnets and limericks here on any subject under the sun

- The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri, reviewed by AnnSkea
  
  Now that the book has been shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker prize I expected it not just to be well written but also uniquely different in some way. The Lowland, however, is a family saga which fits into a well-established genre in which life in the protagonist's home country, where war, terrorism and/or civil strife prevail, is contrasted with life in (usually) America or England.
  - Write your own review

His quirky twists on fairy tales in Revolting Rhymes are some of the funniest things I've read. And I love the dark humour in his adult short stories, esp 'The Landlady', 'Lamb to the Slaughter', 'The Bookseller.' Rereading 'Genesis and Catastrophe' still gives me the creeps.
FlummoxedCollywobble
commenting on Roald Dahl Day: my glimpse into the great writer's imagination

- Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading?
  
  The space to talk about the books you are reading, and find out which ones we are reviewing

Latest Guardian and Observer reviews

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

With its Pigoons and ChickieNobs, does the conclusion of Margaret Atwood's SF trilogy show her at her best, asks Theo Tait
The Conflict by Elisabeth Badinter

Rachel Hewitt on an important challenge by a French historian and philosopher to current trends in parenting
The Tragedy of Liberation by Frank Dikötter

Rana Mitter welcomes an excellent, angry book that details the violence inflicted on Chinese peasants during Mao's so-called 'benevolent' years
Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain, by Charlotte Higgins

Tim Whitmarsh is entranced by a travelogue that uncovers traces of Britain's Roman history
The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters by Anthony Pagden

This study of a game-changing era is big but not deep, argues Stuart Kelly
How to Read Literature by Terry Eagleton

A shrewd and amiable stroll through the canon ends up championing some odd virtues, writes Steven Poole
Money: The Unauthorised Biography by Felix Martin

Economists have lost sight of the value of money – with catastrophic results, says David Priestland
Time Reborn by Lee Smolin

Time is real? Ray Monk on an idea physicists regard as heresy - rescued by this American theorist
Margaret Thatcher by Charles Moore; Not for Turning by Robin Harris

Lots of new material and a new honesty too? By Andy Beckett
Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, and How We Live by Marlene Zuk

Have Homo sapiens evolved, or should we still be eating a stone age diet, asks Peter Forbes
Meeting the English by Kate Clanchy

Kate Clanchy's story of survival and self-determination shimmers with sensual pleasures, says Helen Dunmore
Moral Crusades in an Age of Mistrust: the Jimmy Savile Scandal by Frank Furedi

A book about the Savile scandal shows no interest in the victims, writes Suzanne Moore
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg

Zoe Williams challenges a goal-driven, infantilising, reactionary guide for ambitious women
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Themes of fate, family life and renewal are brilliantly explored in this story of a life lived in wartime Britain. By Alex Clark
Daphne du Maurier and Her Sisters by Jane Dunn

A rather laboured life of Daphne du Maurier and her sisters disappoints Rachel Cooke
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O'Farrell's sixth novel is another class act, writes Viv Groskop
The Silence of Animals by John Gray

John Gray's latest work finds him unimpressed as ever with the ascent of man, writes Peter Conrad
Turing's Cathedral by George Dyson

John Naughton enjoys George Dyson's sprawling account of the development of the computer
The Childhood of Jesus by JM Coetzee

JM Coetzee's tale of a man and a boy's new life in an imagined socialist state is bewildering, says Ben Markovits
A Treacherous Likeness by Lynn Shepherd

Daisy Hay is unhappy with a novel that paints Frankenstein's creator as a murderous fiend
Revolutionary Iran by Michael Axworthy

An exploration of Iran's development since 1979 into an unpredictable pseudo-democracy impresses James Buchan
The Infatuations by Javier Marías

Is there such as thing as chance, asks Javier Marías's masterly new novel
Exodus by Lars Iyer

Ian Sansom follows the most undynamic duo since Vladimir and Estragon as they continue their ramblings on the death of philosophy

Latest reader reviews

Written in Blood
by Caroline Graham

Reviewed by Cathymacleod
Operation Golden Bum
by Tommy Donbavand

Reviewed by Emma78
I Am Pilgrim
by Terry Hayes

Reviewed by laudate
Nikki Heat: Bk. 5: Deadly Heat (Castle)
by Richard Castle

Reviewed by Lakis Fourouklas
Up in the Old Hotel
by Joseph Mitchell

Reviewed by FECarr
Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong - and What You Really Need to Know
by Emily Oster

Reviewed by Brian Philcox
She's Electric: A Britpop Love Story...Sort of
by Nick Amies

Reviewed by Allan Duncan
Animals
by Miles Salter

Reviewed by novamarie
The Signature of All Things
by Elizabeth Gilbert

Reviewed by AnnSkea
Elephantantrum!
by Gillian Shields

Reviewed by RKhatun
Zoe and Beans: Look at Me!
by Chloe Inkpen and Mick Inkpen

Reviewed by RKhatun
Promise for My Mother
by Caroline Ward

Reviewed by Prophessor
The Summer Book
by Tove Jansson (author) and Esther Freud (foreword by)

Reviewed by RedBirdFlies
A Tale for the Time Being
by Ruth L. Ozeki

Reviewed by anamigour
Where's Tim's Ted? It's Time for Bed!
by Ian Whybrow (author) and Russell Ayto

Reviewed by PoppyFlorence
Snowflakes
by Laura Ellen Anderson and Cerrie Burnell (author)

Reviewed by PoppyFlorence
Snowflakes
by Laura Ellen Anderson and Cerrie Burnell (author)

Reviewed by PoppyFlorence
Sweet Tooth
by Ian McEwan

Reviewed by ID348706
Poetry Please
by Roger McGough

Reviewed by lotusblue
Eleanor McGraw, a Pony Named Mouse and a Boy Called Fire
by Katharina Marcus

Reviewed by goodnightmary
The Lowland
by Jhumpa Lahiri

Reviewed by AnnSkea
There, There
by Sam McBratney (author) and Ivan Bates

Reviewed by ID799966
Splat - Fishy Tales!
by Rob Scotton

Reviewed by ID799966
ABC & Do
by Lee Singh and Karen Wall

Reviewed by Jennifer Mitchell
Wake Up Do, Lydia Lou
by Julia Donaldson (author) and Karen George

Reviewed by Jennifer Mitchell
The Ace of Skulls
by Chris Wooding

Reviewed by acorn01
The Black Box
by Michael Connelly

Reviewed by Lakis Fourouklas
Good Omens
by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Reviewed by alanwskinner
Michaela Strachan's Really Wild Adventures: A Book of Fun and Factual Animal Rhymes
by Michaela Strachan (author) and Sarah Horne

Reviewed by ID799966
Zoooo...: Living Poems for Children
by Hugh David Loxdale (author) and Rita Muhlbauer

Reviewed by ID799966
Hugless Douglas Finds a Hug
by David Melling

Reviewed by ID799966
Harvest
by Jim Crace

Reviewed by laudate
Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell in and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin
by Ben Judah

Reviewed by schnozi
On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey Through the Land of the Nomads
by Tim Cope

Reviewed by Harendera Chauhan
Peck, Peck, Peck
by Lucy Cousins

Reviewed by damyanti
The Poet's Daughters: Dora Wordsworth and Sara Coleridge
by Katie Waldegrave

Reviewed by nfid98
Expo 58
by Jonathan Coe

Reviewed by peacable
The Aftermath
by Rhidian Brook

Reviewed by Christopher Philip Howe
Feminine Gospels
by Carol Ann Duffy

Reviewed by pluto1970
Paul Thurlby's Alphabet
by Paul Thurlby

Reviewed by clairih

See all reader reviews

Latest video

Command and Control: the nuclear war video inspired by Eric Schlosser's new book

Eric Schlosser tasked a film-maker to create a video to accompany his new book on nuclear war, Command and Control

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