On Friendship by Andrew O’Hagan review – ties that bind
The novelist on the relationships that shaped his life, from schoolmates to the Rolling Stones and Edna O’Brien
Category Books
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Sarah Hall and Charlie Porter among writers on ‘genre-defying’ Goldsmiths prize shortlist
The £10,000 award, whose judges include Mark Haddon and Megan Nolan, recognises ‘mould-breaking’ fiction
Sarah Hall, Charlie Porter and Yrsa Daley-Ward are among the writers shortlisted for this year’s Goldsmiths prize.
The £10,000 award recognises fiction that “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form”.
What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in September
Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments
I am really excited by Namanlagh, the first poetry collection in 10 years from the great Tom Paulin. A tone-perfect meditation on illness and recovery, partnership and writing, violence and historical neglect, it is an absolute cracker. There are subtle nods to Derek Mahon and Seamus Heaney, and many of the poems are filled with a sense of late style and unfinished business.
One of Us by Elizabeth Day review – the inner lives of Tory MPs
Driven by a whodunnit-ish plot, this state-of-the-nation sequel to The Party features a family at the centre of British political life
Elizabeth Day is the right person to write a state-of-the-nation novel about our society at a point when so many are convinced it’s failing. She herself has made a successful franchise out of failure with her How to Fail podcast. She understands failure and she understands that it may be too tempting to luxuriate in it, rather than seeing how quickly it can turn into success and back again.
Day began her career with thoughtful, intimate novels about the fault lines of family life. Scissors, Paper, Stone and Home Fires were old-fashioned, heartfelt works about how cruelty trickles down the generations and how lives can be tentatively remade. Then she more ambitiously embraced the thriller genre on the one hand and a larger social canvas on the other. This has presented dangers: her last novel, Magpie, risked sacrificing characterisation altogether for the sake of a grand midway reveal; before that, The Party was so plot-driven and backstory-laden that it lacked the fine-grained intimacy of her earlier works. One of Us is a sequel to The Party, but it’s a much stronger, more distinctive novel, better read as a standalone work. Here she has returned to the intimate family dynamics at which she excels, combined with a brilliantly propulsive, almost whodunnit-ish plot and an astute analysis of power. Because the family in question is now at the heart of British political life.
‘Horny wolves, eunuchs and pirates’ among Baillie Gifford prize shortlist subjects
Helen Garner and Richard Holmes among authors of nonfiction books that also encompass international terrorists and ‘ghastly literary men’
“Formidable female novelists, ghastly literary men, a faith-shaken poet, eunuchs, pirates, horny wolves, international terrorists” are among the subjects covered by books on this year’s Baillie Gifford shortlist, according to its judging chair, Robbie Millen.
Literature is a theme of this year’s list, which features the collected diaries of the Australian writer Helen Garner alongside books about the Scottish novelist Muriel Spark and the poet Tennyson.
To explore all shortlisted titles, visit guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
‘Provocative’ story about British Museum statue wins 4thWrite prize
Piyumi Kapugeekiyana’s tale explores repatriation and cultural ownership through a replica of the goddess Tārā
• Read the winning story: The Original Is Not Here
A story exploring cultural ownership through the eyes of a museum curator has won this year’s 4thWrite prize.
Piyumi Kapugeekiyana was announced as the winner of the prize at a ceremony in London on Wednesday evening.
Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry review – a brilliant meditation on mortality
The Essex Serpent author offers a moving account of her father-in-law’s final illness that will resonate widely
The novelist Sarah Perry’s father-in-law, David, died of oesophageal cancer in 2022. This book tells the story of his dying, from the last time she saw him well, on a trip to Great Yarmouth at the end of summer, to his death less than two months later, just nine days after being diagnosed.
It’s not easy to account for what makes this book so special. Its main character is as unpromisingly ordinary as its title suggests, and some may even find him a little boring. David Perry is the kind of man who spends hours sorting his beloved stamp collection into albums with the aid of long-tipped forceps and magnifying glasses, or filling in his Sudoku puzzle books, or reading the latest copy of the Antiques Gazette, looking intently at porcelain dogs and chased silver punch-bowls.
‘A tool in the fight against Amazon’: independent bookshops to begin selling ebooks
A new platform will be an alternative to Kindle, and bookshops will earn 100% of the profit from sales
The online store Bookshop.org is launching a platform through which independent bookshops in the UK will be able to sell ebooks as an alternative to Amazon’s Kindle offering.
Independent bookshops will earn 100% of the profit from sales, and ebooks will be priced the same as they are on Amazon.
Debut author Colwill Brown wins BBC short story award for ‘heartbreaking’ tale – read an extract here
Brown’s story of a teenage life ‘critically damaged in a moment’ was the ‘unanimous’ pick for the £15,000 prize
• Read an extract from the story below
Doncaster-born writer Colwill Brown has won this year’s BBC national short story award for a “heartbreaking” entry about shame and the long-term effects of trauma, told in South Yorkshire dialect.
Brown was announced as the winner of the £15,000 award, run in collaboration with Cambridge University, at a ceremony held at BBC Broadcasting House on Tuesday evening.
Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon review – his first novel in 12 years tunes into rising fascism in the US
The 88-year-old’s jaunty whodunnit, set during the prohibition era, features clowns, Nazis and a missing cheese heiress
Everything is connected in Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon’s fleet-footed noir fiction about a lindy-hopping detective in prohibition-era Wisconsin. The homemade bomb connects to the runaway cheese heiress, the cheese heiress to the federal agents, and the feds to the pro‑Nazi leagues at the bowling lanes outside town. Early-30s Milwaukee, in turn, is connected to powder-keg central Europe, where paramilitary groups have pitched camp on the Hungaro-Croatian border and guest speakers wax lyrical about “our immense fascist future”. Most likely it connects to the current moment as well, albeit wryly and slyly, with a nonchalant swing. That’s the implied final move of this merry dance of a book: the point where the past links its hands with the present.
Shadow Ticket is a Pynchon novel – the 88-year-old’s first in 12 years; his ninth overall – and so it naturally connects to the man’s back catalogue, too, and its abiding fascination with conspiracy, chaos and the churn of American pop culture. Specifically it relates back to his two previous works – Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge – in that the story comes tailored as a dime-store whodunnit, complete with red herrings, plot twists and reams of hard-boiled dialogue. But classifications, like people, are never entirely to be trusted. Pynchon inhabits the genre like a hermit crab inside a mollusc shell, periodically peeking out from the gloom to remind us that he’s there.