Jung Chang brings the modern fairytale of the Soong sisters to a global audience

The modern fairytale of the Soong sisters is well known across China. Bestselling author Jung Chang looks set to bring the sisters’ stories to a global audience. The Book seller calls Jung Chang’s new book ‘utterly engrossing…it stars a trio of extraordinary women, each of whom enjoyed tremendous privilege and fame, but also endured contact attached […]

Three AAA Authors Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019

  The longlist, or ‘Booker Dozen’, for the 2019 Booker Prize is announced today. This year’s longlist of 13 books was selected by a panel of five judges: founder and director of Hay Festival Peter Florence (Chair); former fiction publisher and editor Liz Calder; novelist, essayist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo; writer, broadcaster and former barrister Afua Hirsch; and concert pianist, conductor […]

How it feels to… survive heart surgery, by novelist Mark Haddon

    Earlier this year, I found myself in a bed in the cardiology department at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, wired up to a heart monitor, waiting for a double heart bypass. I’m 56, I’ve been a vegetarian for decades and I like few things more than running for two hours through unpeopled […]

Max Porter’s Lanny Is a Dark, Wonderfully Tactile Reimagining of the Folktale

One of the particular pleasures of a folktale is discovering the story’s entryway to magic. In Max Porter’s beautiful, imaginative novella “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers,” it is mourning. In his whimsical follow-up, “Lanny,” which came out in May, it’s the natural world and a child’s unique sense of wonder. “Lanny” is the story […]