The Booker, the JCB, the Pulitzer and everything else worth knowing about.
Book of the Day
The Guide
R.K. Narayan · 1958
His first novel was going nowhere in London until a friend at Oxford put it in front of Graham Greene — who found him a publisher and told him to shorten his name.
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Writing is a challenge, at every level. There are constant pressures acting upon a writer: juggling between responsibilities and work; prioritizing health; making and somehow slowing down time; even, perhaps, the arresting, infinite possibilities of the page. Not to mention,
Literary Hub · 7 days ago
The building of a cemetery during the pandemic inspires the Huddersfield-born author to reflect on childhood memories and the changing local landscape When Huddersfield council proposed turning some local grazing land into a cemetery during the Covid lockdown, some nearby residents were unhappy. Not poet laureate Simon Armitage, who also lived close to the site. In the introductory essay to his po…
The Guardian · 13 days ago
Today, the Caine Prize for African Writing, which awards £10,000 annually to the best short story by an African writer living on the continent or in the diaspora, has announced its 2026 shortlist. These five writers were selected from a
Literary Hub · 13 days ago
Patrick Radden Keefe, Ben Macintyre and the Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins are among the 13 authors selected for the nonfiction award The Guardian’s chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins joins American investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe and bestselling historian Ben Macintyre on this year’s Baillie Gifford prize longlist. Higgins’ book, Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a Time of War , examines…
The Guardian · 14 days ago
Three Pulitzer winners, a Booker Prize winner, two Booker longlisted authors this year, and a number whose works have been adapted for the screen are among the authors with new books out this month.
NPR Books · 15 days ago
On Sunday, the 2026 Hugo Awards were presented at LAcon V, the 84th World Science Fiction Convention. The awards were voted on by members of the 2025 and 2026 World Science Fiction Conventions; the ceremony was hosted by Ursula Vernon, who treated the audience to extremely cool animal facts throughout the evening. Music was provided […] The post Here Are the Winners of the 2026 Hugo Awards appeare…
Reactor · 16 days ago
Struggling with Alzheimer’s, the central character sets out on his final journey to a euthanasia clinic The word “Alzheimer’s” never appears in Switzy, Emma Cline’s third novel, which arrives pre-endorsed as a Booker prize longlistee. But we can be certain that it is the disease afflicting its central character, David Hastings – certain in a way he finds it increasingly hard to be about anything.…
The Guardian · 16 days ago
The author’s new trilogy continues her aunt’s beloved family saga. What would happen next to the sprawling cast of characters ... and could she pull it off? In the late 1980s Elizabeth Jane Howard was wondering what to write next. Jane, as she was always known, was at that time the author of seven novels. Her debut, The Beautiful Visit, had won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize in 1951 when she was 28…
The Guardian · 17 days ago
John Manuel Arias, author of Crocodilopolis, recommends three must-read Costa Rican writers.
Book Riot · 20 days ago
The 2026 Kirkus Award Finalists include authors like Tayari Jones, Colson Whitehead, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Michael Pollan.
Book Riot · 22 days ago
This morning, Kirkus Reviews announced the 18 finalists for the 2026 Kirkus Prize, which recognizes excellence in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Readers’ Literature. Books are selected by a panel of peers, editors, and other industry professionals. Winners in
Literary Hub · 22 days ago
The book strongly advocates prison reforms and truthfully records life behind bars
The Hindu · 24 days ago
Midlife meditations from Barbara Kingsolver; musical portraits by Jonathan Coe and Yiyun Li; plus memoirs from Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench – all among the coming season’s highlights The Disappearers by Marlon James Hamish Hamilton, 3 September After a detour into mythic fantasy, the author of the Booker-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings returns to Jamaica. This account of a brutal homoph…
The Guardian · 25 days ago
Tony Tulathimutte, the dark wizard behind 2025’s seismic Rejection, has won a new (and massive!) literary prize. As the inaugural recipient of the Jack Galef Literary Arts Award, Tulathimutte will receive $150,000. The award is designated for graduates of Iowa’s prestigious
Literary Hub · 27 days ago
Revisiting George R.R. Martin's innovative New Voices in Science Fiction series The post An Award-Based Anthology Series With a Difference appeared first on Reactor .
Reactor · 27 days ago
Today, the Inside Literary Prize, the US’s only literary prize judged by incarcerated readers, announced its 2026 winner: The Book Censor’s Library, by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain. The Inside Literary Prize, which
Literary Hub · 27 days ago
Praise be to Akhenaten, to Cleopatra, to Ra, Sun Ra, Iris, Osiris and all the ancestors and ancestresses: Flyboy in the Buttermilk, by the late, great Greg Tate—that posthumous Pulitzer Prize-winning polymorphous polymath, the heppest cat to ever done bee
Literary Hub · 30 days ago
The award celebrates its 40th anniversary this year The post E.J. Swift Wins the Arthur C. Clarke Award for When There Are Wolves Again appeared first on Reactor .
Reactor · 34 days ago
The writer – who was also shortlisted in 2023 – has won the prize for her book When There Are Wolves Again, a speculative work of eco-fiction set in near-future Britain A novel about rewilding and climate activism in Britain has been named this year’s winner of the Arthur C Clarke award for science fiction. When There Are Wolves Again by EJ Swift is an “ambitious study in the power of long-term ho…
The Guardian · 35 days ago
This fascinating, eccentric book becomes a quirky primer on Peruvian music and culture When I Give You My Silence was published in Spanish in 2023 its author, the Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, rightly predicted that it would be his final novel. He died last year at the age of 89. I Give You My Silence may have been completed with the spectre of death approaching, but there is nothing…
The Guardian · 36 days ago
Booker Prize winners Marlon James and Douglas Stuart are in the running for the 2026 edition of the prestigious fiction award
The Hindu · 39 days ago