Books Features

William Hazlitt: The lion in Winterslow

Published: 01 February 2006

William Hazlitt, man of the city and scourge of the political classes, loved to escape London for a tiny Wiltshire village, where he produced some of his greatest writing. Duncan Wu walks in his tracks

Augusten Burroughs: Mad, brilliant and dangerous to know

Published: 29 January 2006

At the age of 12, his mother sent him to live with a deranged, scatalogically obsessed psychiatrist; he was fed drugs, sexually abused and became a vicious alcoholic. Now, his cult memoir has been taken up by Hollywood and Augusten Burroughs claims he's happy at last. But can you believe a word he says?

A passion for the Victorian novel

Published: 29 January 2006

The novel never reached greater heights than in the Victorian period, yet the era is still widely misjudged and belittled. D J Taylor explains why his passion for the Victorian novel lead him to create one of his own

Christina Patterson: Is poetry the new Prozac?

Published: 27 January 2006

Poetry is good for your health. That, at least, is the premise of studies currently under way for the Arts Council and the Department of Health. One study, published a couple of years ago in the journal Psychological Reports, suggested that writing poetry boosted levels of secretory immunoglobin A. Another, undertaken by a consultant at Bristol Royal Infirmary, concluded that poetry enabled seven per cent of mental health patients to be weaned off their anti-depressants. Poetry, it seems, is not the new rock'n'roll, but the new Prozac.

Boyd Tonkin: A Week in Books

Published: 27 January 2006

This year has opened in a chill fog of doom and gloom. That recovering Utopian Ken Livingstone welcomed the eco-historian Jared Diamond to London's City Hall to discuss the capital's contribution to surviving climatic calamity and social meltdown. (And, perhaps, its inability to save a single whale?) Gaia's champion James Lovelock has toughened his predictions of near-imminent catastrophe (see John Gray's review on p.24). Elsewhere, the season's most ambitious wide-screen history book ends up veering pretty close to the apocryphal answer that Mahatma Gandhi gave when asked his views on Western civilisation: "I think it would be a good idea".

Cover Stories: The Da Vinci Code; Whitbread; the beautiful game

Published: 27 January 2006

If you're not one of the 10 million souls who have bought The Da Vinci Code, its UK publisher, Transworld, wants to know why. Perhaps the film starring Tom Hanks, due in May, will improve on the book, but Transworld is determined we will all read it first. Its new ads ("If you haven't read Dan Brown, where have you been?") are as subtle as the novel, showing a raft, a periscope and a spaceship. But there's a good chance the film will be delayed by the case brought by Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent, authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, whose thesis appears to have been borrowed by Brown. Due in the High Court next month, the case pits one part of Random House against another. Should they win, it puts Brown, his books (with The Solomon Key expected) and a movie blockbuster in a very interesting position.

Linn Ullmann: Whose life is it anyway?

Published: 27 January 2006

The child of two spellbinding creators, Linn Ullmann looks behind our social masks to tell her own unique stories of crisis, hope and grace. Boyd Tonkin talks to her

Author recreates the dinner party of a lifetime

Published: 25 January 2006

In a Paris hotel in 1922, two society hosts brought off an amazing coup when they threw a party for Proust, Joyce, Diaghilev, Stravinsky and Picasso. But what was it like?

Russell Hoban : Odd, and getting odder

Published: 22 January 2006

Russell Hoban should be putting his feet up, but his novels are as passionate and perplexing as ever. Tim Martin finds out what keeps the writer firing on all cylinders into his eighties, as he grants us a rare interview

It ain't heavy, it's my book club

Published: 22 January 2006

Book clubs have invigorated sales and created new literary stars - but at a price. As publishers and booksellers rush to cash in, Debbie Taylor reports on the rise of Lit Lite

Angela Carter: Clever, sexy, funny, scary

Published: 22 January 2006

A dangerous energy crackles in the writing of Angela Carter which is why, 14 years after her death, she remains avidly read and still maddeningly provoking. Paul Barker surveys her curious life and pyrotechnical works

Cover Stories: Edna O'Brien; Waterstone's; Hunter S Thompson

Published: 20 January 2006

It's been a few years since we heard from Edna O'Brien, but this autumn Weidenfeld will publish The Light of Evening, billed as a return to the world of her debut, The Country Girls. Back in 1960, it caused a furore - its graphic (for the time) sexual content led to its banning in Ireland. Her new novel, which has been "gestating" for years, pivots once again on the mother-daughter relationship. It draws on her mother's early history as an American immigrant working as a servant in Brooklyn before returning to Ireland.

The long-list for this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Published: 20 January 2006

Let great writing banish January blues, says Boyd Tonkin

E L Doctorow: The national enquirer

Published: 20 January 2006

E L Doctorow's new novel about the American Civil War is hotly tipped for a Pulitzer. John Freeman talks to a literary veteran with a virtuoso touch

A Week In Books: The future of British bookselling

Published: 20 January 2006

Whatever its merits as an elliptical parable of Britain after Thatcher, Stephen Poliakoff's TV drama Friends and Crocodiles showed a wayward touch with economic trends. Paul, its maverick business guru, was scorned by his peers when he dreamed of "a chain of quality bookshops". At roughly that moment, the very same fate befell Tim Waterstone, with his quixotic vision of a network of welcoming, well-stocked stores.

Angela Carter: Beauty and the beasts

Published: 18 January 2006

The fantastical author Angela Carter died 14 years ago, but her work has never been more popular. Christina Patterson goes in search of the reasons why her gender-bending fairytales and gothic romances remain so enchanting

Edward St Aubyn: A boy called Teddy

Published: 15 January 2006

Edward St Aubyn's novels about the dysfunctional, upper-crust Melrose family made his name, but turned the spotlight on his own troubled childhood and history of drug abuse. Suzi Feay finds out why he's resurrected his difficult anti-hero, Patrick Melrose

A Week In Books: the art of ghostwriting

Published: 13 January 2006

Everybody loves a literary ghost story - not the kind with floating shrouds and rattling chains, but tales of late-night liaisons over a hot tape-recorder, unfairly divided advances, and the sad plight of the hidden helpers who flit behind a famous name. In publishing, ghosting recalls 1950s sex: often practised, seldom discussed.

David Harsent: The pity, and poetry, of war

Published: 13 January 2006

David Harsent has a double life as a writer of crime fiction and an award-winning poet. He tells Christina Patterson about his taste for difficulty

Cover Stories: Leslie Phillips; Richard Attenborough; Andrew Motion; PEN

Published: 13 January 2006

Two 82-year-old thespians have finally decided to put pen to paper. Leslie Phillips, whose lecherous roles have rather overshadowed his more serious acting, is to write his memoirs. Naturally, it is to be called Hello... and will be written with a little help from novelist Peter Burden and published by Orion in the autumn, coinciding with the release of his latest film, Venus. Meanwhile, Richard Attenborough has teamed up with Diana Hawkins, his former publicist and business partner, for "a two-handed memoir" that was the idea of Sheila, Lord A's wife of 60 years. Entirely Up to You, Darling will take readers behind the scenes and the camera, showing the business side of film as well as his work as a philanthropist, and his friendship with Princess Diana. The book has gone to Hutchinson following a deal by Caroline Michel.

Paul Watkins: On a precipice with the Devil

Published: 08 January 2006

When he's not teaching in a preppie American college, novelist Paul Watkins is trekking through the Sahara or traversing the Nordic glaciers as research for his literary thrillers. Christian House finds out what's driving him on

A Week In Books: The quest for a new Booker sponsor

Published: 06 January 2006

The new year arrives with the latest and - sadly - the last crop of category winners for the Whitbread Book of the Year competition. And a sumptuous valedictory spread it turns out to be. Ali Smith and Tash Aw (for novels and first novels), Christopher Logue (for poetry), Hilary Spurling (for biography) and Kate Thompson (for children's books) collectively write a footnote into literary history as the final contenders for the overall Whitbread title, due to be announced on 24 January. As for the health clubs-to-chain restaurants giant, it seems that a well-managed and universally admired package of book prizes no longer fits the profile of the group that now boasts of its "strategic investment in Pizza Hut". Beneath the thin crust of artistic altruism there lurks the deep, deep pan of corporate strategy.

Cover Stories: Awards; Ottakar's; Curtis Brown

Published: 06 January 2006

In a New Year honours list light on bookish folk, it was gratifying to see that beside the widely reported OBE for Jeanette Winterson was another for Dr Margaret Busby, the pioneering founder of Allison & Busby and - among other current projects - a judge for this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The recognition is long overdue. Unlike Dr B, Judy Piatkus will not be going to the Palace, but she has just collected the Women in Publishing Pandora Award in acknowledgment of her work on behalf of women in the industry. Now into her 27th year as an independent publisher, Piatkus long ago made a success of women's fiction and "mind, body, spirit". But she has always offered advice and support to other women, and makes time for charity work.