Sherrilyn Kenyon drops 'Shakespearean plot' case against husband

Fantasy author of the Dark-Hunter novels had brought the $20m claim against her husband and two members of staff in January

Bestselling fantasy author Sherrilyn Kenyon has dropped the case against her husband in which she had accused him of poisoning her and pursuing a “Shakespearean plot against her” and her career.

Kenyon, author of the Dark-Hunter urban fantasy series, sued her husband, Lawrence R Kenyon II, and two members of staff for up to $20m (£16.4m) in January. The suit, which was filed in Tennessee, alleged that Kenyon II and one of their assistants “would force her to eat and became enraged any time she failed to consume”, producing symptoms including stomach cramps, tachycardia and hair loss. The author alleged that she had been experiencing symptoms since 2015.

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Crêpes of wrath: unknown John Steinbeck tale of a chef discovered

The Amiable Fleas, which charts a cuisinier’s comical love for his cat Apollo has been translated into English for the first time

A whimsical short story by John Steinbeck, in which the usually less cheery author tells the story of a temperamental French chef’s love for his cat, is being published in English for the first time this week.

The author of Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden lived in Paris in the mid-1950s, where he wrote a weekly column for the French daily Le Figaro called One American in Paris. One of his pieces took the form of a short story, Les Puces sympathiques. Published in French on 31 July 1954, it was found by Andrew Gulli in Steinbeck’s papers at the Ransom Centre at the University of Texas at Austin. Gulli is the editor of the Strand magazine, which is publishing it in English this week as The Amiable Fleas.

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US writers recall their migrant journeys in protest at asylum seekers' treatment

Khaled Hosseini, Ocean Vuong and Neil Gaiman among leading authors to sign a letter to the US Congress, urging action to remedy ‘atrocious conditions’

Neil Gaiman, Khaled Hosseini, Ariel Dorfman and Viet Thanh Nguyen are among more than three dozen migrant and refugee writers calling on the US Congress to take “immediate steps to rectify the atrocious conditions for asylum seekers being detained today”.

Forty authors, all of whom have migrated to the US or are the children of migrants, signed an open letter pleading with Washington politicians to take action over inhumane conditions in detention centres on the US-Mexico border.

Related: A US-born teen was in border custody for 23 days. Now he’s suing the government

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Miles Franklin 2019 winner Melissa Lucashenko: 'We need a revolution'

The prize-winning author on rage, her ‘risky’ novel and speaking truth to power

Melissa Lucashenko has the flu but that doesn’t stop her breathing fire down the phone line. “This bloody bullshit about the forgotten white working class – if there’s any forgotten people in Australia, if there’s any battlers in Australia, it’s brown and black people,” she says.

Lucashenko has just found out she’s won the 2019 Miles Franklin award, Australia’s most prestigious prize for fiction, for her novel Too Much Lip. It’s a book the writer says was “risky” from the beginning.

Related: Miles Franklin award 2019: your guide to this year's 'profoundly empathetic' list

Related: ‘I had to be manic’: Tara June Winch on her unmissable new novel – and surviving Andrew Bolt

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Author of Christian relationship guide says his marriage is over

Bestselling US ‘purity culture’ writer Joshua Harris says he has also lost his faith

The American author of a bestselling Christian guide to relationships for young people has announced that his marriage is over and he has lost his faith.

Joshua Harris, whose biblical guide to relationships I Kissed Dating Goodbye sold nearly 1m copies around the world after it was published in 1997, has also apologised to LGBT+ people for contributing to a “culture of exclusion and bigotry”.

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The Tiger Who Came to Tea coming to TV this Christmas

David Oyelowo to star in animated version of Judith Kerr children’s classic

The Tiger Who Came to Tea, the classic children’s book by Judith Kerr which has enchanted generations of readers, will come to TV this Christmas as a half-hour animated film on Channel 4, featuring the voices of Benedict Cumberbatch, David Oyelowo and Tamsin Greig.

They will be joined by David Walliams and Paul Whitehouse, and the role of Sophie will be taken by seven-year-old Clara Ross, who will make her TV debut. The special will be made by the team behind previous festive shows We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and The Snowman and the Snowdog.

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'Essex isn’t known as a hotbed of radicalism’: how protests turned back library cuts

After protests across the county, the council has dropped plans to shut 25 branches. Now a drive is on to prevent ‘stealth closures’

On Tuesday morning, more than 100 people gathered to march on a cabinet meeting at Essex county council’s Chelmsford headquarters. In scorching heat, protesters turned out from Hullbridge and Benfleet, Hadleigh and Great Parndon and Tye Green. “I need books, not screens,” said the banner propped on a toddler’s buggy. “No to the library vandals!” read another.

The Conservative-run local authority first unveiled its plans for libraries late last year, saying it hoped to close 25 of Essex’s 74 branch libraries, handing 19 more to volunteers and 15 to partnership schemes. The people of Essex weren’t impressed and the following months saw hundreds march against the cuts throughout the county: 500 in Manningtree, 500 in Galleywood, 300 in Colchester, 300 in Shenfield, 1,000 in Chelmsford. Tens of thousands also signed petitions in protest and a public consultation drew 20,000 responses. Then, earlier this month, Essex executed a remarkable U-turn, announcing that no library would close in the next five years.

Related: Do libraries run by volunteers check out?

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Zed by Joanna Kavenna review – death by algorithm

This brainy dystopian satire sees a tech giant disclaim responsibility for terrifying mishaps befalling citizens of the near future

A swarming techno-dystopia set in London four years hence, Joanna Kavenna’s new novel concerns the reputational damage suffered by Beetle, an all-conquering tech giant, when George Mann, a nondescript middle-aged father with no history of violence, suddenly murders his wife and two sons. The crime isn’t the centre of the story, more its impact on Beetle’s CEO, Guy, whose aura rests on the accuracy of his predictive algorithms, which – nourished by 24/7 surveillance of everything from browser history to heart rate – are supposed to pre‑empt such atrocities.

The early part of the novel catalogues the ills of life in a data-driven dictatorship, in which the poor are jailed before they can commit crimes, and you need BeetleBits, Beetle’s cryptocurrency, for “basic functioning in society”. But you can only earn them by working for Beetle, which only hires the best; a degree helps, but universities only accept payment in… you guessed it.

Related: Joanna Kavenna: ‘History is littered with people who have said, “This is the only reality”’

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Jane Austen's Sanditon 'sexed up' in Andrew Davies adaptation

Screenwriter says he used all the material from Austen’s work in first half of first episode

Jane Austen novels are not known for scenes of nude men jumping into the sea or secret sex acts between lovers in forests.

But for the screenwriter Andrew Davies, who is transforming Austen’s final, incomplete novel, Sanditon, into a TV series, it would be a shame not to add them in.

Sanditon will air on ITV in the autumn.

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Moon landing poem launches Simon Armitage as poet laureate

Conquistadors – reproduced exclusively below – knits memories of first love and the Apollo 11 pioneers with reflections on colonialism. Read it below

Two months after his appointment, Simon Armitage has penned his first poem as the UK’s poet laureate: a commemoration of the 1969 moon landing, which compares the US astronauts to the Spanish explorers who conquered the Americas in the 16th century.

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Medievalists excited at parchment fragment of 'vagina monologue'

Find in Austrian abbey dates poem to 200 years earlier than previously thought

It has been called the earliest form of the Vagina Monologues – an argument in verse between a woman and her vulva, originating in the Middle Ages.

Now a fragment of the text, about who gives more pleasure to men, dates the poem to 200 years earlier than previously thought.

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Yuval Noah Harari admits approving censored Russian translation

Sapiens author said he had authorised revisions to all his books in order to reach ‘diverse audiences around the world’

Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari has acknowledged that he authorised replacing criticism of Vladimir Putin with criticism of Donald Trump in the Russian edition of his bestseller, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, saying that Russian censors would not have allowed him to publish the original text.

Earlier this week, Newsweek reported that the Russian translation of 21 Lessons blunted Harari’s criticism of Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.

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From Black Panther to Tade Thompson: why Afrofuturism is taking over sci-fi

Thompson’s Arthur C Clarke winning novel Rosewater, NK Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor ... the most exciting sci-fi is coming from writers of colour

Last week Tade Thompson, a British-born Yoruba writer, became only the second writer of black African heritage to win the Arthur C Clarke award for science fiction. Three out of this year’s five shortlisted titles were by writers of colour, a reflection of the fact that some of today’s most exciting SF and fantasy writing comes from non-white authors. Recent high-profile examples include Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, which won the Pulitzer prize in 2017, as well as that year’s Arthur C Clarke award and is being made into a TV series by Barry Jenkins; and NK Jemisin, who last year won a third consecutive Hugo award for best science fiction novel with the final part of her Broken Earth trilogy. Yet as Tom Hunter, award administrator for the Arthur C Clarke prize, points out, of the 124 submissions from 46 different publishers and imprints, only 7% were by writers of colour. He is unambiguous about what this means: “Diversity in science fiction needs action now.”

Thompson’s Rosewater was a worthy winner: a complex and fast-moving novel that expertly balances weird alien incursion against thriller action, zombie scares and a vividly rendered future Nigeria. He joins Whitehead and Jemisin as leading proponents of contemporary Afrofuturism, at a time when that movement is going mainstream – the film Black Panther took more than $1bn at the box office last year, and some of the world’s biggest recording artists have adopted Afrofuturist stylings, from Rihanna and Beyoncé to Janelle Monáe.

What’s happening is a shift in focus: Thompson is the first African not living in the US to win a major SF/fantasy award

Related: ‘So many different types of strange’: how Nnedi Okorafor is changing the face of sci-fi

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What will Palestine be like in 2048? Writers turn to sci-fi for the answer

A new anthology collects 12 authors’ visions of life in the region in 2048 – providing a liberating change for some

Twelve acclaimed Palestinian writers have imagined what their country might look like in 2048, 100 years after the Nakba saw more than 700,000 people expelled from their homes, in what is believed to be the first ever collection of science fiction from the occupied territories.

Stories in Palestine + 100 range from Majd Kayyal’s depiction of a futuristic solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which two parallel worlds occupy the same geographic space, to Saleem Haddad’s Matrix-like concept of a “right to digital return”. Man Booker International prize nominee Mazen Maarouf’s story, meanwhile, is set in the aftermath of a nanobot attack in 2037, narrated by the last Palestinian left alive, his body so affected by radiation that he is kept in a glass box, but who cannot be killed.

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Less ado: Boris Johnson's Shakespeare book delayed for 'foreseeable future'

The incoming prime minister’s Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius was scheduled for October 2016, but has been pushed back multiple times

The riddle of Shakespeare’s genius must remain unsolved, for now at least, after Boris Johnson’s publisher said on Wednesday morning that the new prime minister’s “simple and readable” book exploring the “true British icon” had been indefinitely delayed after his victory in the Conservative leadership vote.

Johnson’s biography, Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius, had originally been scheduled for October 2016, but this was postponed. In April this year, publisher Hodder & Stoughton said the book had been scheduled for April 2020, but admitted it was not yet finished.

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Margaret Fulton, trailblazing Australian food writer, dies aged 94

The acclaimed cookbook author was credited with introducing generations of Australians to international cuisine

•Open thread: tell us what Margaret Fulton taught you about cooking

The acclaimed Australian writer and cook Margaret Fulton has died aged 94.

Fulton, a trailblazing author of more than 25 cookbooks, is often credited with bringing international cuisine to a generation of Australians.

Thanks #MargaretFulton You never ceased to offer a fail safe for those of us who are NOT Masterchefs #CookBook pic.twitter.com/q7eFm4pViD

How many Australian households have one of these in the kitchen? What a legacy #margaretfulton pic.twitter.com/2WzqZEbmsd

Early this morning our family lost our most treasured, inspirational and loving mother and grandmother, Margaret Fulton. Our hearts are too broken to respond to your messages right now, but we’re deeply grateful for your love and support. Xx

Related: Open thread: what did Margaret Fulton teach you about cooking?

#margaretfulton must have recipe books! pic.twitter.com/oclFlemGS3

Thank you #margaretfulton for introducing me to cooking
Condolences to her family and friends pic.twitter.com/MLf50k7KxW

The legacy will live on in kitchens & around dinner tables for years to come. #margaretfulton
*the book of home baking is one of my favourite & most used cookbooks pic.twitter.com/bowdOPYxo1

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Open thread: what did Margaret Fulton teach you about cooking?

The celebrated cookbook author died aged 94 on Wednesday - tell us in the comments about what you learned from Fulton

My mother’s copy of Margaret Fulton’s Encyclopedia of Food and Cookery no longer sits straight on the shelf. The yellow clothbound cover has faded to an unattractive beige and the binding tape dad stuck over the spine is losing its grip, causing it to slump against its neighbours.

It’s full of neat pencil annotations (“v. good, used half sugar”) and certain pages fall open, stained from heavy use: beef bourguignon, pork and water chestnuts, apple and quince pie.

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Handmaid's Tale sequel leads 'exacting' 2019 Booker prize longlist

Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments – not published until September – is chosen alongside 12 other ‘credible winners’ including Salman Rushdie and Jeanette Winterson

• Not read them yet? A cheat’s guide to the 2019 Booker prize longlist
  

Most readers will have to wait until September to find out what happens in Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, but the Booker judges have deemed The Testaments worthy of a place on the 2019 longlist for the £50,000 literary prize.

This is the sixth time the Canadian novelist has been nominated for the Booker, and her first nomination since she won the UK’s most prestigious literary prize for The Blind Assassin in 2000.The Testaments is set 15 years after the end of her dystopian classic The Handmaid’s Tale. Out on 10 September, the novel’s contents remain a closely guarded secret – with this year’s judges, chaired by Hay festival director Peter Florence, only saying in their statement: “Spoiler discretion and a ferocious non-disclosure agreement prevent any description of who, how, why and even where. So this: it’s terrifying and exhilarating.”

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)

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British Museum staff express support for trustee who resigned

Novelist Ahdaf Soueif quit role over BP sponsorship and artefacts repatriation

Workers at the British Museum have issued a statement in support of the novelist Ahdaf Soueif, who resigned as a trustee last week because of the institution’s “immovability” on critical issues, including its sponsorship by BP.

The staff, who are members of the Public and Commercial Services union, said Soueif’s resignation highlighted “the troubling nature of the relationship between BP and the arts”, adding that its sponsorship by the oil company allowed the company “to propagate the myth” that without it “we would not have access to the collections of our publicly funded museums and galleries”.

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Donald Trump Jr writes Triggered, 'the book leftist elites don't want you to read!'

President’s eldest child claims his literary effort will ‘expose tricks the left uses to smear conservatives’

Donald Trump Jnr is set to join his sister Ivanka, mother Ivana and father Donald Snr on the bookshelves with the announcement that he will be releasing his own literary effort later this year.

His book is titled Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us. It is due to be published on 5 November by Center Street, a conservative non-fiction publishing house that counts the former Republican speaker Newt Gingrich and the conservative commentator Gretchen Carlson among its authors.

Related: Praise be: how cycle of sycophancy boosts books about Trump

This is the book the leftist elites don’t want you to read! Pre-order now https://t.co/FUR4Bp95OP pic.twitter.com/veDM3lOlBI

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Michael Pollan worries we don't know enough to legalise psychedelic drugs

Speaking in Melbourne, the journalist who has become synonymous with the conversation on psychedelics explains why it’s complicated

To some, Michael Pollan is the game changer of the psychedelic conversation; to others, who have concerns, the gatekeeper.

The journalist’s sixth book, How to Change Your Mind, topped the New York Times bestseller list and took a broad view of the history, culture and scientific research around psychedelics.

Related: Michael Pollan: ‘I was a very reluctant psychonaut’

I just don’t think we know enough to legalise these [psychedelic] drugs. We should decriminalise them.

Related: Artist Joe Roberts: 'The psychedelic experience is an incredible tool'

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'Offensive' poem about Condoleezza Rice stokes New Hampshire verse rift

• Governor drops nominee over sexually suggestive poem
• Daniel Patrick Moran was published by Asinine Poetry

New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu has abandoned his pick for state poet laureate, amid growing criticism of the man’s work and how he was selected.

Related: Trump revives the idea of a ‘white man’s country’, America’s original sin | Nell Painter

Condoleeza are we

not the lucky ones,

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Old men by the sea: Tennessee banker takes Hemingway lookalike contest

• Joe Maxey, 68, beats 141 other author impersonators
• Long-running event shows importance of being Ernest

A retired banker from Tennessee beat 141 other white-bearded contenders to win the coveted Ernest Hemingway Look-Alike Contest in Key West, Florida, on Saturday, at the eighth attempt.

Related: The husband also rises: Mr Paula Deen wins Hemingway lookalike contest

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Backlash grows against unstaffed libraries

Use of keycards and self-service scanners cannot replace librarians, say campaigners

Harriet Connides hasn’t been to her local library in north London’s East Finchley for months. She used to go every few days, often with her young daughter, but now it is staffed for only 16 hours a week and Connides, who has severe mobility problems, is uncomfortable being in there alone. “I don’t feel safe here any more. If I fall, I don’t know what would happen,” she says.

The disabled toilets are also closed during unstaffed hours. “It’s another avenue cut off from someone who already has a lot of avenues cut off,” says Connides.

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Philip Pullman's La Belle Sauvage to be adapted for London stage

Nicholas Hytner will direct an adaptation of the His Dark Materials prequel at the Bridge theatre

More than a decade after Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy first dazzled theatre audiences, his prequel novel La Belle Sauvage is set to be adapted for the stage at London’s Bridge theatre in autumn 2020.

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Bridge theatre confirmed that plans were under way to adapt Pullman’s 2017 novel for the stage. Bridge artistic director Nicholas Hytner will direct the show, which will be written by Bryony Lavery.

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Publisher accused of 'ripping off' best-selling book on racism

Ben Lindsay’s We Need To Talk About Race has similar cover and title to prizewinning book by Reni Eddo-Lodge

The publisher of a new book about racism in the UK has been accused of “ripping off” Reni Eddo-Lodge’s best-selling polemic Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, after announcing a book with a strikingly similar cover design and title.

Ben Lindsay – the author of We Need To Talk About Race – which focuses on ethnicity and the church – and his publisher SPCK launched the book online on Thursday.

I’m sure that Ben Lindsay’s book makes a lot of relevant points about racism in the church, but the cover art and concept are both heavily influenced by Reni Eddo-Lodge. This public conversation about race must deal with why Black women’s work is so often uncredited and copied. pic.twitter.com/PFQ9aq4ZJP

Related: The BBC ripped off my Slay in Your Lane slogan – now I’m being attacked | Yomi Adegoke

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Charles Dickens museum buys lost portrait 130 years after it went missing

London museum raises £180k to buy Margaret Gillies’ portrait of young author that was found in South African auction

A portrait of Charles Dickens that was lost for more than 130 years is “coming home” after the success of a fundraising campaign.

The Charles Dickens Museum at 48 Doughty Street in London said the target of raising £180,000 had been reached to buy the painting by Margaret Gillies of the writer when he was 31.

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'A unique and slightly mad effort': mapping the UK in poetry

A national community arts project, where poems are matched to precise locations, is reinventing a 17th-century classic for the digital age

Pinned just west of Marsden, Yorkshire on a 17th-century map of the UK, is a poem by the UK’s new poet laureate, Simon Armitage. “The sky has delivered / its blank missive. / The moor in coma.” Move west, to the Isle of Man, and the poet is a little less well known – she’s dubbed herself Mrs Yorkshire the Baking Bard – but the sense of place is just as strong (and the rhymes are better, too): “I climbed Maughold Head as the morning sun rose / And the darkness surrendered to light / Where the buttery bloom of the golden gorse grows / And adventurous seabirds take flight.”

The poems – two of almost 2,000, and growing – are part of the Places of Poetry project, a community arts initiative where members of the public are invited to write poems and “pin” them on a digital map to the locations in England and Wales that inspired them. Inspired by Michael Drayton’s 17th-century poem Poly-Olbion, a 15,000-word poem on the topography of England and Wales, the project is being run by poet Paul Farley and Andrew McRae from the University of Exeter.

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Tade Thompson's 'gritty' alien invasion tale wins Arthur C Clarke award

Judges praise winning novel Rosewater for its ‘winning combination of science fictional invention and sly wit’

British Yoruba author Tade Thompson has won the Arthur C Clarke award, the UK’s most prestigious prize for science fiction novels, for Rosewater, his alien invasion novel set in a future Africa.

Opening in 2066, in the aftermath of an alien invasion that has left much of humanity powerless through airborne microscopic fungal spores, Rosewater is the name of a new town that forms on the outskirts of an alien biodome dropped in rural Nigeria. The dome opens just once a year, heals all nearby sick people, gives new life to the dead and begins to influence people in unusual ways. The alien presence has also awakened telepathic skills among select humans, dubbed “sensitives”, and the novel follows one, Kaaro, who investigates when other sensitives begin to die.

Related: Rosewater by Tade Thompson review – a stellar SF debut

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Tade Thompson's 'gritty' alien invasion tale wins Arthur C Clarke award

Judges praise winning novel Rosewater for its ‘winning combination of science fictional invention and sly wit’

British Yoruba author Tade Thompson has won the Arthur C Clarke award, the UK’s most prestigious prize for science fiction novels, for Rosewater, his alien invasion novel set in a future Africa.

Opening in 2066, in the aftermath of an alien invasion that has left much of humanity powerless through airborne microscopic fungal spores, Rosewater is the name of a new town that forms on the outskirts of an alien biodome dropped in rural Nigeria. The dome opens just once a year, heals all nearby sick people, gives new life to the dead and begins to influence people in unusual ways. The alien presence has also awakened telepathic skills among select humans, dubbed “sensitives”, and the novel follows one, Kaaro, who investigates when other sensitives begin to die.

Related: Rosewater by Tade Thompson review – a stellar SF debut

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Turkish translation of Paulo Coelho 'removed mention of Kurdistan'

Publisher and translator express shock that version of Eleven Minutes published in Turkey had reference cut

A Turkish publishing house is pulling its translation of the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho’s Eleven Minutes after readers discovered that the translation had removed a reference to Kurdistan and changed it to the Middle East.

In the English translation of the original Portuguese, Coelho writes: “She went into an internet cafe and discovered that the Kurds came from Kurdistan, a nonexistent country, now divided between Turkey and Iraq.” The Turkish translation changes the second part of the sentence to “it was written on the internet that the Kurds lived in the Middle East.”

Related: ‘Police officers demanded to see my books’: Elif Shafak on Turkey's war on free-speech

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Andrea Camilleri, beloved creator of Inspector Montalbano, dies aged 93

One of Italy’s most popular authors, Camilleri wrote 23 novels starring his Sicilian detective, selling more than 30m copies around the world

One of Italy’s most popular authors and creator of the Inspector Montalbano series, Andrea Camilleri has died at the age of 93.

Camilleri, who was born in Sicily in 1925, was taken to hospital in Rome in June after going into cardiac arrest.

Related: 'Italians go for the strongman': Montalbano author on fascism and the future

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True crime author's claims to have interviewed serial killers contested

Mind Games by Paul Harrison withdrawn from sale, after his accounts of interviews with Ted Bundy, Peter Sutcliffe and others were called into question

Publishers of a true crime book by an “experienced criminal profiler” have pulled his work from sale, after his claims to have interviewed serial killers including Ted Bundy and Peter Sutcliffe were called into question.

Described as “the master of the true crime genre” by Martina Cole, Paul Harrison is the author of more than 33 books, including his latest, Mind Games, issued by Urbane Publications in October 2018. The Doncaster author says he worked as a police officer in the UK for three decades, “serving as a dog handler, intelligence officer, as a detective and later as a profiler”, and that he “worked closely” with the FBI’s Behavioural Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia for six months in 1982.

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Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma review – a digital detox too far

A woman’s midlife crisis leads her to a reality show on a desert planet. Then her problems really start

Luiza Sauma’s second novel puts a science-fiction spin on a well-worn narrative of early midlife crisis. Iris, a Londoner nearing 30, is wondering how much longer she can spend Thursday nights trying not to throw up on the bus home after drinking with colleagues from the branding agency where she works as a “digital innovation architect”.

There’s early fun poked at this lingo. “So many valuable learnings for us to take away and ponder,” Iris’s line manager says after a presentation on hashtags. Parsing emails about the need for “dynamic, holistic social”, Iris compares herself to a detective: “but instead of solving a murder, she was trying to work out what she did for a living”.

The real interest lies in Iris’s private psychodrama

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Exhalation by Ted Chiang review – stories from an SF master

The emotional and the cerebral are expertly balanced in these meditations on the mysteries of existence

Perhaps the world’s least hasty writer, Ted Chiang has built his fiercely dedicated fanbase slowly but surely. His first story, “Tower of Babylon”, appeared in 1990. During the 90s he published only three more pieces. Eleven further stories have appeared since 2000. He has never published a novel, yet his 15 stories have won all the genre’s most prestigious awards: Hugos and Nebulas, Sturgeons, Tiptrees and BSFAs galore – more than two dozen prizes in all.

In 2016 Chiang came to the attention of a much larger audience when his “Story of Your Life” was adapted for the big screen as Arrival, starring Amy Adams. But it hasn’t changed him. He continues on his slow-paced way, occasionally releasing another carefully thought-through, precisely worked SF short to the world.

There are enough classic Chiang shorts to make this collection something special

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'They said we used cheddar!': chef demands removal from Michelin Guide

Marc Veyrat of Le Maison des Bois said he had been depressed for months after losing a coveted star following ‘amateur’ inspection

Knives are being sharpened in the elite world of French gastronomy after an acclaimed chef demanded that his restaurant, which recently lost one of its three stars, be withdrawn from the Michelin Guide – a request the publishers of the iconic red book have refused.

In an extraordinary letter, revealed by Le Point, Marc Veyrat railed against his demotion in January, voicing his doubts that the guide’s inspectors had even visited his restaurant, La Maison des Bois, in the Haute Savoie.

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'Book ripper' on vandalism spree in seaside town

Hundreds of volumes in the library and bookshops of Herne Bay have had pages torn in half, but police remain baffled

A literary vandal is stalking the streets of Herne Bay in Kent, ripping pages in half in dozens of books in a charity shop and library before replacing them on shelves.

Ryan Campbell, the chief executive of the charity Demelza, which runs a bookshop on Mortimer Street, told the Guardian that since April, around 100 books in the shop have had their pages torn in half horizontally before being reshelved.

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Metallica to publish illustrated children's book, The ABCs of Metallica

Book tells the history of the metal band, and will benefit their charity All Within My Hands

Metallica, the metal band known for their toxic rivalries, substance misuse and songs entitled Leper Messiah, Harvester of Sorrow and My Friend of Misery, have entered the world of children’s publishing.

The illustrated book The ABCs of Metallica will be published on 26 November, to benefit the band’s charity foundation All Within My Hands. The band wrote it in collaboration with author Howie Abrams, and it is illustrated by Michael “Kaves” McLeer.

Related: Metallica review – masterclass in heaviness brings down the heavens

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Jilly Cooper tops inaugural Comedy women in print awards

The Rutshire Chronicles author received the lifetime achievement honour, with prizes for rising stars Laura Steven and Kirsty Eyre

Reigning queen of the pun Jilly Cooper has been awarded the inaugural Comedy women in print (CWIP) lifetime achievement award “in recognition of her legacy and inspiration to comic women writers everywhere”.

The bestselling author, who at one point describes her hero Rupert Campbell-Black’s aggressive love-making as “like a power drill … her Campbell-Black-and-Decker”, was named winner on Wednesday night.

Related: A new start: Jilly Cooper on the night in a Kama Sutra room that led to her book Riders

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Game of Thrones prequel: no Targaryens or Lannisters – but plenty of Starks

George RR Martin reveals new details of HBO’s forthcoming spin-off serial, which is set to star Naomi Watts and Miranda Richardson

George RR Martin has let slip a few details about the forthcoming Game of Thrones prequel, revealing that while there may be fewer dragons in the HBO television show, there will be direwolves, mammoths and White Walkers.

The serial, which is currently being filmed in Northern Ireland, takes places thousands of years before the events in Game of Thrones and “chronicles the world’s descent from the golden age of heroes into its darkest hour”, according to HBO. Naomi Watts is lined up to star as “a charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret”, with Miranda Richardson also part of the cast. Jane Goldman and Martin himself are the show’s creators, with Goldman the showrunner.

Related: Blood, sex and needlework: Game of Thrones recreated in 90-metre tapestry

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Rip Torn, cult actor, dies aged 88

Star of a string of 60s classics fell foul of Hollywood because of his temper but found a fresh lease of life in comedy, from TV’s Larry Sanders Show to the Men in Black films

Rip Torn, America’s celebrated wildman actor, has died aged 88. Torn, who had been a constant presence on stage and screen since the mid-1950s, was arguably better known for his eccentric, and occasionally violent, antics when the cameras weren’t rolling – and on one notorious occasion, when they were.

His publicist confirmed his death on Tuesday night, according to the Associated Press.

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Essex drops library closure plans following sustained public protests

After campaign involving thousands of residents as well as stars including David Walliams and Jacqueline Wilson, council says all branches will remain open

After months of protests involving hundreds of residents and the support of big names including David Walliams and Jacqueline Wilson, Essex county council has dropped plans to close 25 libraries.

The cuts, first proposed by the Conservative council in November 2018, involved closing 25 of the county’s 74 branch libraries, as well as handing a further 19 to volunteers and 15 to run in partnership schemes.

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How to Train Your Dragon author Cressida Cowell named new children's laureate

The author and illustrator comes to role with ‘giant to-do list’, which includes making school libraries a legal requirement, and more time for creativity

How to Train Your Dragon author and illustrator Cressida Cowell has been named the new Waterstones children’s laureate, and has promised she will use her two-year incumbency to make the magic of books “urgently available to absolutely everyone”.

Following 10 previous laureates, from Quentin Blake to, most recently, Lauren Child, Cowell’s stories about the adventures of timid Viking Hiccup and his dragon Toothless, have sold more than 11m books around the world. They have also been adapted into a popular film series by DreamWorks.

Related: Cressida Cowell: my tour through 15 years of How to Train Your Dragon – in pictures

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'Hentai is brilliant': Countdown contestant clocks risque winner

Marwan Riach unearths six-letter word describing sexually explicit anime or manga

A contestant on the Channel 4 gameshow Countdown is being praised online for winning a round with the word “hentai” – much to the amusement of viewers.

Marwan Riach unearthed the six-letter word – which refers to a genre of sexually explicit or pornographic anime or manga – from an jumble of nine letters.

Related: When good TV goes bad: why the number's up for Countdown

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'It sickens me': Gillian Flynn slams Gone Girl theory in missing woman case

Lawyer for Jennifer Dulos’s husband is exploring whether her disappearance is a ‘Gone Girl-type case’, provoking fury of author behind book

Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn has said an estranged husband’s claim that his missing wife may have faked her disappearance in the manner of Flynn’s bestselling novel “absolutely sickens” her.

Connecticut woman Jennifer Dulos has not been seen since 24 May when she was collecting her children from school, according to ABC News. Police believe the mother of five was assaulted in her home, where bloodstains were found. She was in the process of what has been described as a bitter custody dispute with her husband, Fotis Dulos, whose lawyer, Norm Pattis, insists does not know where she is.

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Trump calls Ocasio-Cortez 'Evita' in new book American Carnage

• President interviewed for book on Republican civil war
• Comparison to Eva Perón indicates respect for Democrat
  

Donald Trump has compared Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Eva Perón, saying that though he first saw the New York congresswoman “ranting and raving like a lunatic on a street corner” and thinks “she knows nothing”, she has “a certain talent”.

Related: When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious'

I see a young woman ranting and raving like a lunatic on a street corner, and I said: ‘That’s interesting, go back'

She’s got talent. Now, that’s the good news. The bad news: she doesn’t know anything

Related: How AOC and a queer candidate for DA could create a sex work revolution

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Crime writers react with fury over claim their books hinder rape trials

Novelists have condemned the Staunch prize – for thrillers without violence against women – as a ‘gagging order’, after organisers said the genre could bias jurors

Crime novelists have hit out at the claim that fictional depictions of sexual assault influence the outcomes of rape cases, after a prize for books with no violence against women asserted that stereotypical portrayals of attackers could “seriously affect justice”.

The Staunch prize, awarded to a thriller in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered, was launched last year to “offer an alternative narrative to stories based around violence to women”. When it was announced, it was widely criticised by major writers including Val McDermid and Sophie Hannah. McDermid said that “as long as men commit appalling acts of misogyny and violence against women, I will write about it so that it does not go unnoticed”, and Hannah told her publishers not to submit her books for the prize.

Related: A prize for thrillers with no violence against women? That’s not progressive

Many crime writers explore this kind of material because they believe it's important not to brush it under the carpet – and they do so carefully and with sensitivity

Related: We need to read about trauma – the perpetrators as well as the victims

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Neil Gaiman's The Sandman is green lit by Netflix

After several attempts to film Gaiman’s acclaimed comic book series, the streaming giant has picked it up in a ‘massive’ deal with Warner Bros

After multiple failed attempts to make a screen adaptation, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman comic book series has been acquired by Netflix, in what is being reported as a “massive” deal with Warner Bros.

The news comes 30 years after Gaiman published the first comic in the series, in which the Dream King Morpheus wakes up from 70 years of captivity at the hands of a mortal. The series ran for 75 issues, and has often been described as unfilmable, with previous attempts to adapt it foundering. The most recent was in 2016, when actor and fan Joseph Gordon-Levitt acquired the rights and was due to direct a film adaptation in which he also played Morpheus – but left the project due to “creative differences” with studio New Line.

Related: Neil Gaiman's Sandman: maybe a film adaptation just isn't meant to be

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Miles Franklin award 2019: shortlisted Australian authors ‘unafraid to take risks’

Judges laud six authors vying for $60,000 prize, including Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Melissa Lucashenko and Rodney Hall

From an unsettling, dystopian vision of the ocean’s future to a tale of Muslim youth in western Sydney, judges for the 2019 Miles Franklin literary award said its shortlist speaks to the diversity of Australian experience and imagination.

The six authors shortlisted for the $60,000 prize were announced on Tuesday. They include Miles Franklin veterans Rodney Hall, Gail Jones and previous longlistee Melissa Lucashenko, alongside Gregory Day, Michael Mohammed Ahmad and Jennifer Mills.

Related: We need our children to rebel. We need our children to doubt | Bruce Pascoe

The Lebs by Michael Mohammed Ahmad (Hachette Australia)

A Sand Archive by Gregory Day (Picador Australia)

A Stolen Season by Rodney Hall (Picador Australia)

The Death of Noah Glass by Gail Jones (Text Publishing)

Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko (University of Queensland Press)

Dyschronia by Jennifer Mills (Picador Australia)

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Activist held in US after reciting poem attacking immigration rules

American Civil Liberties Union files court petition arguing that the detention of Jose Bello violates the first amendment

A student activist who was arrested in California 36 hours after reading a poem critical of immigration policy is being supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is arguing that his arrest violates the first amendment.

Jose Bello read the poem, Dear America, at a public forum held by the Kern County board of supervisors in May. Written after his detention by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in 2018, the poem reads: “We demand our respect. We want our dignity back. / Our roots run deep in this country, now that’s a true fact … We don’t want your jobs. We don’t want your money. / We’re here to work hard, pay taxes, and study.”

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Prison book ban lifted in Northern Ireland

Change of policy ordered after review by prison service deemed ban ‘not proportionate’

A Northern Irish prison that holds some of the most dangerous republican paramilitary prisoners has lifted a ban on books about terrorism.

A review by the Northern Ireland Prison Service deemed the ban “not proportionate” and ordered a change of policy, it was announced on Monday.

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