Of Mice and Men first-draft fragment torn up by Steinbeck’s dog goes to auction

John Steinbeck’s pet ‘made confetti’ of the manuscript in 1936, but a surviving piece will go on sale alongside personal journals, first editions and a wrought-iron sword owned by the author

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Graham Greene was ‘ready to go to jail for Lolita’, says Véra Nabokov’s diary

Newly published record of the struggle to get the controversial 1955 novel past censors adds ‘there could be no better reason’

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Jared Kushner pressured Washington Post to fire editor over Russia, book says

Marty Baron says Trump’s son-in-law leaned on Post publisher to withdraw support of Russia election interference investigation

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Cassidy Hutchinson says Republicans face ‘make-or-break’ moment on Trump

Former White House aide says Trump ‘almost destroyed democracy’ and is running for president to do it again

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‘Rather devastating’: how the New York Times came to terms with Aids

A new book says the paper long failed to recognise the epidemic that defined the 1980s – in fact, despite the homophobia of its top editor, the Times reported the disease’s deadly advance

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The White Review literary magazine ceases publishing

A statement cited increased costs and removal of UK state funding as the magazine, which featured writers including Paul Murray, Caleb Azumah Nelson and Sally Rooney, is to consider its future

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Top Trump aide burned so many papers wife noticed ‘bonfire’ smell, book says

Mark Meadows’ wife complained of cost of dry-cleaning to remove smell from suits, Cassidy Hutchison writes in new memoir

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Cartoonists create colouring book for refugees in rebuff to UK government

Welcome to Britain produced after minister ordered mural at Kent migrant centre to be painted over

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Northern Ireland libraries can no longer afford to buy books

A funding shortfall means the country’s library service will operate with reduced hours, and is ‘unable to purchase new books or take requests at present’

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Truman Capote story discovered in notebook published by Strand magazine

Editor Andrew F Gulli found Italian-set work written in pencil by American writer among papers in Library of Congress

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Just one British writer makes the Booker prize shortlist

Chetna Maroo’s ‘mesmerising’ Western Lane has been chosen on a male-dominated list

• ‘Portraits of what it means to be alive today’: how we chose the 2023 Booker prize shortlist

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New guidelines urge UK libraries not to avoid controversial books and ideas

‘In [a] polarised world, it is important our sector is clear in its opposition to censorship’ says the Cilip report, published as services increasingly asked to remove books

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George RR Martin and John Grisham among group of authors suing OpenAI

Seventeen authors have joined a new lawsuit alleging ‘systematic theft on a mass scale’ by the program

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Amazon restricts authors from self-publishing more than three books a day after AI concerns

The company announced the new limitations after an influx of suspected AI-generated material was listed for sale but said that ‘very few’ publishers will be affected

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Texas teacher fired for showing Anne Frank graphic novel to eighth-graders

Move comes as education laws restricting teaching of race, sexuality and other topics are being implemented across the US

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Ex-Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson claims Rudy Giuliani groped her on January 6

Exclusive: in a new book, Hutchinson describes incident in which the former New York mayor put his hand ‘under my blazer, then my skirt’

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Trump and Meadows joked about Covid on plane after Biden debate, book says

Exclusive: Ex-aide Cassidy Hutchinson says Trump ordered White House guests who tested positive to remove masks in Oval Office

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US book bans and attempted bans rise as efforts extend to public libraries

American Library Association notes efforts to ban titles have spread beyond school libraries to those open to general public

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Rupert Murdoch often wishes Donald Trump dead, Michael Wolff book says

Media mogul has become ‘a frothing-at-the-mouth’ Trump critic, Fire and Fury author writes in new book, The Fall

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Rupert Murdoch thought $787.5m Dominion suit would cost Fox $50m, Michael Wolff book says

Trump tell-all author returns with tale of Fox News strife which also includes prediction Ron DeSantis will be Republican nominee

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‘Chilling’: Ariana Grande, Amanda Gorman and others sign letter against book bans

Letter, spearheaded by Reading Rainbow’s LeVar Burton, includes 175 signatories calling on Hollywood to fight bans in US schools

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Russell Brand publisher pauses all future books with comedian

Bluebird, who were due to publish Brand’s new self-help book in December, took the decision in light of ‘very serious allegations’

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Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner apologizes for disparaging Black and female artists

In interview about new book The Masters, Wenner had said no female or Black musicians ‘were as articulate’ as white performers

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‘Used as dartboards’: rare British war comic art rescued from bins, skips and floods

Original drawings and paintings from 60s and 70s comics such as Hotspur and Commando will feature in an exhibition in Oxfordshire

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A smoking quill? Notes in Bible margin could be handwriting of the Venerable Bede

Annotations in eighth-century manuscript point to work of revered English monk, scholar and saint

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Four large US publishers sue ‘shadow library’ for alleged copyright infringement

The publishers are claiming unspecified damages from the file-sharing Library Genesis, which they say has distributed files illegally

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Wainwright prize for nature writing won by ‘unparalleled’ river memoir

Amy-Jane Beer’s The Flow is one of three prize winners, with Guy Shrubsole’s conservation study The Lost Rainforests of Britain and Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston’s children’s book Leila and the Blue Fox

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Kazuo Ishiguro song lyrics collection to be published

The prize-winning novelist’s lyrics, written for US jazz singer Stacey Kent, will be published with illustrations next March

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Texas was state with most book bans in 2022, report shows

Number of book challenges nationwide doubled from 2021 as book ban movement gathers speed in Republican-led states

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Charity launches award and database to encourage diversity in children’s books

Inclusive Books for Children survey found that two thirds of minority ethnic parents struggle to find representative books to read their children

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Blessed are the cheesemakers: University of Leeds acquires oldest surviving book about British cheese

16th-century ‘pamflyt compiled of cheese’ offers a comprehensive survey of British varieties – and their dubious medical benefits

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‘The most fun!’ Paul Simon unveils collaboration with The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse illustrator

Charlie Mackesy created his new drawings while listening to Simon’s music, the pair explain at the exhibition launch, with Simon outlining how the Covid-19 pandemic helped his creativity

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Christine Blasey Ford to release memoir detailing Kavanaugh testimony

Book, to be published in March, will share ‘riveting new details’ on lead-up to Senate testimony and ‘its overwhelming aftermath’

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‘Authoritarian regimes ban books’: Democrats raise alarm at Senate hearing

Spotlight on partisan split of issue as Republicans push for works to be taken out of schools and libraries

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Big Panda author using proceeds to set up animal sanctuary in Swansea

Exclusive: James Norbury says he is fulfilling pledge made after his debut book landed him a six-figure deal

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Elon Musk biographer admits suggestion SpaceX head blocked Ukraine drone attack was wrong

Walter Isaacson’s book had ‘mistakenly’ said mogul secretly told engineers to turn off Starlink coverage of the Crimean coast

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Eight things we learned from the Elon Musk biography

Widespread access to world’s richest man allowed biographer Walter Isaacson to detail a number of illuminating anecdotes

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‘Only the great writers are misquoted’: Dublin marathon medal has wrong Yeats quote

‘There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t met yet’ is engraved beneath an image of the Nobel-winning Irish poet. Only he didn’t write it

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Rudy Giuliani ‘mob scene’ turned Elon Musk off seeking advice, new book says

Biography by Walter Isaacson contains colorful nugget of then New York mayor seeking 10% stake in PayPal in return for advice

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Self-publishers must declare if content sold on Amazon’s site is AI-generated

Retailer announces new rules for its Kindle Direct Publishing forum after complaints about AI-produced works being sold under human writers’ names

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Agatha Christie statue takes seat on bench in Oxfordshire town

Memorial by Ben Twiston-Davies is sited in Wallingford, where the mystery writer lived for more than 40 years

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‘It’s a sickness’: Chuck D on his new graphic novel and the ‘madness’ of US gun culture

The Public Enemy frontman talks about why he returned to his first love of art to create a book about the violence dividing his country

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Uncorrected Harry Potter proof found at primary school sold in ‘fairytale’ auction

Rare copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone featuring ‘JA Rowling’ typo sold to local museum in Oxfordshire

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‘Provocative’ new book to showcase four decades of Hilary Mantel’s work

The wide-ranging collection A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing features subjects from her health struggles to Robocop and has been announced a year after the author’s death

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Sarah Holland-Batt wins $25,000 top prize at Queensland literary awards

The poet’s premier’s award for The Jaguar, a collection about the death of her father, follows Stella prize win earlier this year

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Slavery, revolution and war: Baillie Gifford prize longlist highlights history

Tania Branigan’s Red Memory and Jeremy Eichler’s Time’s Echo are among the titles in the running for the £50,000 award

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Edith Grossman, acclaimed translator, dies at 87

Her translation of Don Quixote was described as ‘indisputably definitive’, and she received a host of accolades including the Order of Civil Merit awarded by the King of Spain

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Professor Hakim Adi shortlisted for prestigious Wolfson award

The nomination for Adi, the first British person of African heritage to become a professor of history in the UK, is a vindication for the academic who was made redundant a week ago

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Ernest Hemingway letter about surviving plane crashes sold for $237,055

The novelist’s four-page letter to his lawyer in 1954 recounts his injuries following two successive plane crashes in two days

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More than half of UK children do not read in their spare time, survey reveals

National Literacy Trust says families and schools need resources to help disadvantaged children develop vital literacy skills

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Revealed: how Hitchhiker’s Guide author predicted rise of ebooks 30 years ago

In unseen notes to be published in a new book, Douglas Adams foresaw the success of a host of technology we now take for granted

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Nobel Foundation reverses decision to invite Russian ambassador to awards

Foundation backtracks on earlier announcement that representatives from Russia, Belarus and Iran would be invited

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Virginia library at risk after rightwing push to defund it over LGBTQ+ books

Samuels Library set to close on 1 October after far-right community members claimed LGBTQ+ books were pornographic

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Family of poet Gboyega Odubanjo launch fundraiser to start foundation

More than £36,000 raised to support low-income black writers in memory of award-winning poet who went missing

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Roald Dahl’s works shouldn’t be edited, says Wes Anderson

Director says he feels that when a piece of art is finished, ‘it’s done’, amid row over editing of offensive language

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Society of Authors calls use of bad reviews for book blurbs ‘morally questionable’

After several critics complained of being quoted out of context on the covers of Jordan Peterson’s new book, the industry body has spoken out against the practice

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