Books

The novelist’s portrait of a movie star raises unsettling questions about privacy and truth

The writer tried to embrace the new tech of his age – and ended up imagining ghostly ‘Duplicates’ of humans endlessly churning out text

In an exclusive extract from Paul Mason’s new book, Reds: A Global History of Communism, he warns that, in the struggle between democracy and dictatorship, the entire history of the left is now in play

The brilliant novel Dear Monica Lewinsky made me think back on a summer on a movie set with men who knew better than to cross the line

Most music biographies are lazy and rubbish. Here are 10 exceptions

Seven decades after Ellis faced the hangman, author Louisa Treger argues that the attitudes behind her execution have not disappeared

Felix Hartlaub’s scathing notes on ‘one fanatic and a heap of ingratiating rubber dwarves’ may have got him killed

If you finish a novel and you haven’t posted about it, have you really read it at all?

There’s a golden rule that you don’t plug someone else’s book when your own one is out. But there are some times when you have to make an exception

From an actor in a bag to brutal Japan and Britain’s privatisation rip-off, here’s what belongs in your suitcase

The pastel-toned social media trend is popular even with progressive women. But there’s a dark side to the oven-fresh bakes and homegrown veg

Caro Claire Burke’s badly written bestseller is the worst novel I’ve ever devoured

He is back to thrill and torment us with Red Sheet. Just don’t ask him about Trump

A definitive new history settles decades of myths about the ultimate cult band – but are some mysteries better left unresolved?

Write to letters@thenewworld.co.uk to have your views voiced in the magazine

The book is supposed to be published in just three weeks, with review copies already out

A new book knows its stuff about the WWE star, but glosses over some of his worst moments

The former minister’s editors have done him no favours, and his lightweight summaries of wars would leave a GCSE history examiner unimpressed

The days when one man could ban plays might have ended in 1968 – but now redaction is rife

His film has put The Odyssey on the bestseller list – yet a third of adults in the UK say that they have already given up on books

He was a playboy who rubbed shoulders with Warhol and Jagger – and a photographer who captured big beasts driven to the brink

We used to love high-speed trains – before cowardice and waste took over

It’s not the crimes themselves - it’s a way to confront the possibility that it could happen to us

The ‘laureate of ordinary people’ has informed the new PM’s concern for the ignored

The restless author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is back with a new novel – and he still believes in America and the power of writing

The bass legend believes music is becoming a middle-class hobby

We can’t really read the new prime minister if we don’t know what he reads

Biographer Sathnam Sanghera on our unresolved problems with the late singer

For two weeks, I told everyone about the book I was reading – including an older lady on a train. And then I read one of its stories…

Tari Lang’s memoir discusses growing up under Indonesia's military dictatorship while much of society carried on as normal

The vice president has gone from hillbilly to hypocrite, and Communion exposes the gulf between belief and behaviour

Patrick Freyne’s creations The Heathens star in a book that’s hilarious and heart-wrenching