Netflix scraps film version of Alice Sebold book after rape conviction overturned

A screen adaptation of the memoir Lucky is no longer in production after the man who was found guilty of the crime at the centre of the story is exonerated

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Novelist Bernardine Evaristo to be president of Royal Society of Literature

Author best known for Booker-winning Girl, Woman, Other will be first writer of colour in position

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Mark Gatiss TV version brings The Amazing Mr Blunden back into print

Classic children’s ghost story, long in demand as a secondhand book, will receive its first reprint for more than 30 years thanks to the star actor – and a dogged book editor

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‘A bit pushed’: Enid Blyton letters reveal strain of work and motherhood

Exclusive: author writes of pressures of looking after own children and answering ‘thousands of personal letters’

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US libraries report spike in organised attempts to ban books in schools

The American Library Association, which monitors ‘challenges’ to books, says social media have amplified protests to the highest number for decades

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Roman Abramovich wins first round of libel battle over Putin’s People book

UK judge rules some passages convey a defamatory meaning, including claim Putin told him to buy Chelsea

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Former Trump adviser claims to ‘expose unvarnished truth’ of Covid in new book

Scott Atlas resigned four months into his role and blames Dr Fauci and Deborah Birx for Covid related ‘headline-dominating debacles’

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NFT beats cheugy to be Collins Dictionary’s word of the year

The abbreviation of ‘non-fungible token’ tops a shortlist also including pingdemic, climate anxiety and metaverse

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Costa prize 2021 shortlists highlight climate anxiety

Jessie Greengrass’s novel The High House, set in a flood-devastated Suffolk, was one of several of the nominees to focus on global heating, said judges

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Tolkien estate blocks ‘JRR Token’ cryptocurrency

The US investment product promising users ‘a journey through risk to reward’ has been ruled an infringement of trademark rights

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Cain’s Jawbone: TikTok helps reissued literary puzzle fly off the shelves

Reissue of a 1934 murder mystery that has only been solved four times sells out online after social media boost

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Award-winning American poet Robert Bly dies aged 94

Bly was an opponent of the war in Vietnam and author of Iron John, the manifesto of the ‘expressive men’s movement’

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Authors back Sally Rooney’s boycott of an Israeli publisher

Kamila Shamsie, Monica Ali and China Miéville are among those who have signed a letter organised by Artists for Palestine

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Kayleigh McEnany’s book claims don’t stand up to assurances that she didn’t lie

Trump’s fourth press secretary often relies on single sources and conservative talking points in new book

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‘It was terrifying’: ancient book’s journey from Irish bog to museum treasure

A new book tells the story of the painstaking process to preserve the 1,200-year-old Faddan More Psalter

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Mowgli, Bagheera, Baloo: Rudyard Kipling’s own sketches of the Jungle Book cast revealed

Until recently, drawings made to help shape the characters could only be seen in the British Library. Now they will feature in a new edition

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Japanese anime One Piece to air its 1,000th episode in 80 countries

Cartoon series, starring Monkey D Luffy, started life as a manga in 1997 and is a record seller as a comic book

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Fragment of lost 12th-century epic poem found in another book’s binding

Scholars knew the work about Guillaume d’Orange and the bloody siege of his city existed, but until now believed it had been lost completely

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National Book awards: Jason Mott wins US literary prize for ‘masterful’ novel Hell of a Book

The North Carolina novelist has won the National Book Foundation’s award for fiction for his dark absurdist novel

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Paul McCartney’s perfect sandwich revealed during talk about cookbook

Musician was talking to comedian Romesh Ranganathan about Linda McCartney’s Family Kitchen

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Black talent takes centre stage at Lyric Theatre

Festival to celebrate black culture and creativity, with Lemn Sissay and Shingai as headline acts

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Nazis based their elite schools on top British private schools

Eton and Harrow among those whose ‘character-building’ qualities were admired by German educators in 1930s and 1940s

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Baillie Gifford prize goes to ‘controlled fury’ of Empire of Pain

Judges praise Patrick Radden Keefe’s investigation of the Sackler family and its role in the opioid crisis for its rigour, bravery and narrative energy

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Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk charged again with ‘insulting Turkishness’

Case based on his new novel Nights of the Plague, initially dismissed in April, has been reopened after an appeal

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John Lewis sued by self-published children’s author over Christmas ad

Fay Evans alleges a ‘striking similarity’ between the 2019 Excitable Edgar TV campaign and her 2017 book Fred the Fire-Sneezing Dragon

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Bill Nighy to narrate Terry Pratchett’s footnotes in new Discworld recordings

The actor will bring Pratchett’s ‘personal commentary’ to life in a star-studded re-recording of all 40 Discworld audiobooks, featuring narrators from Indira Varma to Andy Serkis

• scroll down for an exclusive audio extract from the series

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Chris Christie: Trump knows better about election lies – or is just ‘plain nuts’

Former New Jersey governor’s new book bound to put him at odds with former president as 2024 approaches

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Olympic swimmer Cate Campbell says male coaches obsessed with weight of female athletes

In new book, four-time gold medallist writes girls were told to use smaller plates to avoid eating too much

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‘What the hell is an HSC exam?’ Poet Ocean Vuong pokes fun at perplexed Australian students

Renowned author shares Instagram messages from year 12 students who complained about his ‘confusing’ text in English exam

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Isabel Waidner wins Goldsmiths prize for ‘mindbending’ Sterling Karat Gold

Waidner’s third novel follows a non-binary migrant who is arrested in London in what has been described as ‘Kafka’s The Trial written for the era of gaslighting’

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Christos Tsiolkas wins $60,000 Melbourne prize for literature

Melbourne writer honoured for ‘outstanding contribution to Australian literature and to cultural and intellectual life’

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John Agard becomes first poet to win BookTrust lifetime achievement award

Reading charity pays tribute to ‘incredible words’ of Afro-Guyanese author, who came to Britain in 1977 where he has become a staple of English lessons

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‘Delicious caper’ by Jesse Sutanto wins Comedy women in print award

Dial A for Aunties takes prize for comic novels by women with story about woman who turns to her relatives after accidentally killing her blind date

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Social media helped me face cancer, says Chocolat author Joanne Harris

Writer tells Lauren Laverne on Desert Island Discs how she felt ‘connected to the world’ when discussing her breast cancer

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‘How do you give up privilege?’: Damon Galgut on his Booker-winning novel

In The Promise, Galgut chronicles the decline of post-apartheid South Africa through four funerals over 40 years

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Is Superman Circumcised? favourite to win Oddest book title of the year

This year’s Diagram prize also pits Curves for the Mathematically Curious against The Life Cycle of Russian Things and Hats: A Very Unnatural History

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Report shows fourfold rise in minority ethnic characters in UK children’s books

The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education welcomes steep increase in representation, but warns there are ‘no quick fixes’

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Licensed to thrill: Kim Sherwood set to ‘expand the James Bond universe’

Known for her debut novel Testament, the Ian Fleming fanatic has been approved to write new novels set in 007’s world but without the agent himself

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Damon Galgut wins Booker prize with ‘spectacular’ novel The Promise

The novelist takes the £50,000 prize with a ‘strong, unambiguous commentary on the history of South Africa and of humanity itself’

• Damon Galgut is a clear and unsurprising Booker winner

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Senegal’s Mohamed Mbougar Sarr wins top French literary prize

Prix Goncourt goes to 31-year-old’s novel The Most Secret Memory of Men, praised for its ‘stunning energy’

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Paul Newman memoir to be published in 2022, 14 years after star’s death

Book slated for next autumn will cover Hollywood, Broadway, politics, racing and 50-year marriage

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US justice department suing to block Penguin purchase of Simon & Schuster

$2.2bn deal under threat after attorney general files antitrust suit claiming Penguin Random House would ‘exert outsized influence’

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‘Chronic’ lack of investment in UK primary school libraries revealed

National Literacy Trust and Penguin Random House call for urgent action after report shows 40% of primary schools have no dedicated library budget

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Alex Gino’s children’s novel George retitled Melissa ‘to respect trans heroine’

Writer says they had not realised they should speak up about the title when the book was first published, but it will henceforth take the heroine’s female name

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Damon Galgut is ‘all the rage’ favourite to win 2021 Booker prize

Bookmakers place South African novelist at 2/1 to take Wednesday’s award with his novel The Promise, closely followed by Richard Powers’s Bewilderment

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Jane Austen’s House secures future with funding to restore roof

Mixure of grants and donations from supporters will now pay for the thousands of roof tiles in need of repair at the Grade I-listed museum in Hampshire

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