Books
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From pageturning thrillers and comic novels to an antidote to doomscrolling – our pick of the best new fiction and nonfiction. Plus 10 brilliant paperbacks, and 10 great reads for children and teens
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This powerful tell-all from the Kinks guitarist puts the spotlight on his own bad behaviour, dalliances with the occult and his recovery from a stroke
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This International Booker-winning story of a woman who travels to Pakistan at the age of 80 to reclaim her true identity is a breath of fresh air
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This uneven account of the Ukrainian president’s three years in power is aimed at his home market, but offers glimpses of the man behind the wartime facade
What to read
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From Ukrainian history to Putin’s kleptocracy and Gogol’s stories, author and former Russia correspondent Oliver Bullough chooses the best titles
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Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some wonderful new paperbacks, from new editions of classic Marvel comics to great novels for the summer
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Morris resolves to fight her aggressor in this extraordinary account of her five-year struggle with a terminal brain tumour
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A fascinating history of women’s football from early 20th century heights, through suppression, to its present-day resurgence
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A ‘guide’ for companies looking to undermine unwelcome research exposes the corporate world’s dark arts
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In this analysis of six national leaders, the grand old man of US politics offers a broad-brush history of international statecraft but ignores the death and destruction that sometimes resulted
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This thoughtful follow-up is a clever echo of Burton’s debut, tracing a woman’s coming of age in early 18th-century Amsterdam
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Wood’s unnerving fourth novel follows young siblings from borstal to living on a farm in 50s England
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A teenage ghost observes the erotic and creative bond between composer and author in Stevens’s playful debut novel
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The Three Women author once again explores female desire and sexual power dynamics in a collection of stories that often feel shockingly true
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This Dutch novel takes aim at the depersonalising corrosiveness of the internet, but becomes laboured
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The financial crash and subsequent protests provide points of orientation in a surreal tale of love, loss and speculative reality
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A secret day out at the seaside; a celebration of wildflowers; dinosaurs, spies and children with superpowers
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A call to embrace wildness, a guide to shells, a tall tree tale, wishing candles, paper spirits, and a tough apology to make
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The novelist on learning farming from his grandfather, how his background in law informed his work, and why homophobia is a Victorian export
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Voices of everyday things fill The Book of Form and Emptiness, rooted in how she experienced the loss of her father
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The award-winning author on the urgency she felt when writing her pandemic novel, how she relates to Sarah Connor from The Terminator and what Egon Schiele’s paintings make her feel
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The French-Algerian author on teenage fame, the parallels between her and Zinedine Zidane, and why she admires Bernardine Evaristo
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The novelists discuss using real life in fiction, email style, and the art of writing sex scenes
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The Albanian author and academic on what she misses most about her homeland and how a communist childhood steeped in lies sparked her interest in philosophy
Regulars
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The crime writer on being fascinated by A Clockwork Orange, inspired by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and taking comfort in Muriel Spark’s novel
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Context is crucial, but does that really mean we can leave free will out of the picture?
You may have missed
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Unpublished writers from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds have until 14 August to submit their entries for the Guardian and publisher 4th Estate’s competition
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The annual award for aspiring cartoonists offers the chance to be published in the Observer and win £1,000, with past winners going on to land film and book deals
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Kate Clanchy’s memoir about teaching won the Orwell prize. Then, a year later, it became the centre of a storm that would engulf the lives of the author, her critics and dozens of people in the book trade. So what happened?
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Summer books: Bernardine Evaristo, Hilary Mantel, David Nicholls and more pick their favourites