Freemasonry behind Auld Lang Syne arm-linking at new year, study reveals

Masonic connection uncovered as to why revellers link arms when they sing Robert Burns’ best-loved song

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Books and films censored under Franco still circulating in Spain

Dictator who died in 1975 stamped out mention of Spanish civil war, sexuality and anti-Catholic views

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Dismay as UK’s first specialist black bookshop forced to close

New Beacon Books in north London announces it will close and move online only after more than 55 years

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Untrained blind student lands starring role in Netflix second world war epic

Disability rights groups applaud casting of Aria Mia Loberti in All the Light We Cannot See

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Bambi: cute, lovable, vulnerable ... or a dark parable of antisemitic terror?

A new translation of Felix Salten’s 1923 novel reasserts its original message that warns of Jewish persecution

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Remembering Joan Didion: the journalist and author in her own words – video

Joan Didion, the eminent journalist, author and documenter of contemporary America, has died from Parkinson’s at the age of 87. Known for her pioneering blend of the personal and the political in her journalism and essays, Didion became a household name with her writing on US society that was collected in books including Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album

• Joan Didion, American journalist and author, dies at age 87

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Joan Didion, American journalist and author, dies at age 87

Unsparing observer of national politics and her own life, she won enormous acclaim for her memoir of grief, The Year of Magical Thinking

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Alan Bennett dedicates Kipling poem A Dead Statesman to Boris Johnson

The playwright’s annual diary excerpt criticises the prime minister and Donald Trump and recalls an encounter with Philip Roth

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Roman Abramovich settles libel claim over Putin biography

Russian oligarch ends his case against journalist Catherine Belton over her book Putin’s People

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Pinch of Nom narrowly beats Richard Osman to top Christmas book chart

The food bloggers’ fourth book Comfort Food outsold Osman’s second cosy crime novel by just over 1,000 copies

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Martha Wells continues run of female Hugo award winners

Wells’s novel Network Effect takes top science fiction award, the sixth successive win for a woman in what was once an almost exclusively male honour roll

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One of world’s smallest books sold at auction for £3,500

Leather-bound version of Lord’s Prayer the size of the end of a pencil cannot be read with the naked eye

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Eve Babitz, chronicler of 1960s and 70s Hollywood excess, dies aged 78

Babitz’s witty dispatches from Los Angeles featured everyone from Jim Morrison to Steve Martin and made her a cult figure to a generation

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European roundup: Abraham double fuels revitalised Roma at Atalanta

• England forward opens scoring after just 55 seconds
• Nicolò Zaniola and Chris Smalling also on scoresheet

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A Christmas Carol’s lesser-known successor gets its moment in the spotlight

The Charles Dickens Museum is hoping to attract new attention to the festive story The Cricket on the Hearth with the first display of some of its illustrations

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bell hooks, author and activist, dies aged 69

In acclaimed works Ain’t I a Woman and All About Love the writer shared her ideas about race, feminism and romance with flair and compassion

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New Arabian Nights translation to strip away earlier versions’ racism and sexism

The Annotated Arabian Nights will be the first English translation by a woman, and will include female protagonists that have previously been omitted

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Prime Minister’s Literary awards 2021: Amanda Lohrey wins $80,000 fiction prize for The Labyrinth

Tasmanian author honoured for poignant novel which also won the Miles Franklin and Voss literary prizes

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‘Extremely rare’ photograph of the Rossettis taken by Lewis Carroll up for auction

The Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland author captured the famous siblings Christina and Dante Gabriel in 1863

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Memoir by the late journalist Sarah Hughes to be published in March 2022

The beloved Guardian writer finished Holding Tight, Letting Go before she died of cancer earlier this year

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Anne Rice, author of Interview With the Vampire, dies aged 80

Horror writers pay tribute after bestselling gothic novelist dies of complications from stroke

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Inauguration poet Amanda Gorman ‘preserves the memory of a pandemic’ in new collection

The writer who shot to fame when Joe Biden was sworn in as president has published her response to Covid-19

• Scroll down to read Fugue, a poem from Gorman’s new collection

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Grace Nichols’ ‘pioneering voice’ wins her Queen’s gold medal for poetry

Poet laureate Simon Armitage, who chaired this year’s award committee, said the Guyanese writer’s works ‘echo with the rhymes and rhythms of her family and ancestors’

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Mary, Queen of Scots ‘locked’ final letter using paper-folding, research finds

On the eve of her execution, Mary wrote a last message to French king, which scholars believe she used elaborate skill to secure

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From road trip to catwalk: Jack Kerouac classic inspires Dior collection

Kim Jones, winner of Fashion Awards designer of the year, draws on Beat novel On the Road for his first show in London since 2003

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New book celebrates the lost work of Shakespeare’s female editors

Scholar Molly Yarn identifies more than 60 women who have contributed to the history of the Bard’s works, and believes there are still more to find

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Library audio and ebook loans in 2021 reveal unexpected stars

Alongside Richard Osman and JK Rowling, figures show huge successes for relative unknowns Ellery Adams and Brenda Chapman

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Nobel winner Abdulrazak Gurnah says ‘writing cannot be just about polemics’

The Zanzibari novelist spoke of migration, colonialism and how he became a writer in his acceptance lecture on Tuesdsay

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Chris Cuomo’s upcoming book pulled by HarperCollins following dismissal by CNN

The publisher cancelled the book days after he was fired for assisting his brother during sexual misconduct investigation

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Malcolm X’s former prison cell becomes first of 1,000 planned ‘freedom libraries’

The first of the planned amenities for US prisoners opens in the Massachusetts jail where the campaigner was incarcerated in the 1940s

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Feminist retelling of Nineteen Eighty-Four approved by Orwell’s estate

American writer Sandra Newman’s novel Julia will tell the dystopian story from the perspective of Winston Smith’s lover

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Crowdfunding offers the UK’s independent booksellers a pandemic lifeline

As local bookshop numbers grow, readers have come together to back them in Crickhowell, Brighton and Buckley

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Dictionary.com names allyship as word of the year for 2021

Site took unusual step of anointing a word it added just last month, though allyship first surfaced in the mid-1800s

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Julia Donaldson reveals tussle over opening couplet of Superworm

Author backed down over publisher’s concerns about potentially embarrassing misinterpretations

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Colombian family win award for world’s best cookbook

Mother-and-daughter team scoop gong at Gourmand awards in Paris for volume of traditional leaf-wrapped recipes

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Let him be: how McCartney saved roadie from arrest after Beatles final concert

Diaries of band’s road manager, Mal Evans, revealing chaos at gig to feature in major biography

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US author to give away £10,000 prize cash over role of sponsor in opioid crisis

Investigative reporter Patrick Radden Keefe will give money from business book of the year shortlisting to charity over involvement of McKinsey firm

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Antony Sher – a life in pictures

An actor, painter and writer, Antony Sher was one of British theatre’s most revered stage icons – look back at his career

Antony Sher, celebrated actor on stage and screen, dies aged 72

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Is Superman Circumcised? wins oddest book title of the year award

Study of the superhero’s Jewish influences beats off stiff competition to come first in this year’s Diagram prize

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Publishing powerhouse Louise Adler named director of Adelaide writers’ week

Adelaide-born publisher a frequent presence at Australia’s largest literary festival, having sat on panels and interviewed authors

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Julia and the Shark’s writers on their pandemic-driven book lauded by Waterstones

The novel written and illustrated by husband-and-wife duo, Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston, has been named children’s gift of the year by Waterstones, while Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics wins book of 2021

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How an innocent Black man served time for the rape of author Alice Sebold

Anthony Broadwater spent 16 years in jail as victim of miscarriage of justice but has accepted author’s apology

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Debut novel by ‘Russian Proust’ to be published in English for the first time

The translation of Deceit by ‘groundbreaking’ author Yuri Felsen, who died in Auschwitz in 1943, is set to come out next May

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Unmasked: the Penguin saves world from Covid in Danny DeVito’s Batman story

The actor, who played him in Batman Returns, has written a storyline for an 80th anniversary edition of the DC comic which sees him vaccinate the planet

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Marcus Rashford to publish children’s novel The Breakfast Club Adventures

The footballer and campaigner is writing story with Alex Falase-Koya, drawing on his own memories of friendships made before starting the school day

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Alice Sebold’s publisher pulls memoir after overturned rape conviction

Scribner has responded to the news that Anthony Broadwater has been cleared of the crime at the centre of Lucky by ceasing to distribute the book

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Unmasked: the Joker saves world from Covid in Danny DeVito’s Batman story

The actor, who played him in Batman Returns, has written a storyline for an 80th anniversary edition of the DC comic which sees him vaccinate the planet

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