Latest features and reviews

<p>Both Sides Now: Henry Alford’s new book sheds a new, humorous light on the folk music legend Joni Mitchell </p>

In Focus

Joni Mitchell: Hilarious, cutting, and not one to suffer fools

The woman behind the music is funny, outspoken, and impossible to put in a box. Jim Farber speaks to Henry Alford whose new biography ‘I Dream of Joni’ chronicles 53 delicious anecdotes of drink-throwing, insult-hurling and musical genius that reveal different sides to the folk legend

<p>Brooke Shields reflects on aging as a woman in the spotlight for her new book </p>

The Reading List

Brooke Shields’s book about ageing fails to realise one crucial thing

<p>Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gestures as he speaks during Donald Trump’s inaugural parade in Washington DC</p>

Nine warnings from history about the Nazis that already strike a chord

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in focus

What do the non-fiction books we read say about us?

<p>January’s highlights include books about James Dean, Irish migration and racism </p>

The best new books to read this January

<p>Decluttering our bookshelves doesn’t have to be a painful task... </p>

How to deal with the hardest festive breakup of all

<p>The best reads of the year include ‘Munichs’ by David Peace and Andrew O’Hagan’s ‘Caledonian Road’ </p>

The Countdown

The 20 best books of the year, ranked

<p>Reading list: The non-fiction titles you shouldn’t miss this year </p>

The List

2024’s best non-fiction: True crime, fandom and nostalgia

<p>Bestselling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, who wrote ‘A Woman of Substance’, has died at the age of 91</p>

Tribute

Barbara Taylor Bradford embodied the intrepid, rags-to-riches heroines of her of novels

<p>Turn back time: Cher – photographed here in the Seventies – has just released her first memoir</p>

The reading list

Cher’s flat new book exposes the limits of the ghostwritten memoir

<p>Joan Didion (left) and Eve Babitz have become symbols of literary cool </p>

The Reading List

The uneasy bond between Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, two very different literary ‘it girls’

<p>‘Johanna was my closest friend, but she was also like a younger sister. Some sort of unspoken authority was vested in me, some sort of wild freedom in her’ </p>

Extract

Sigrid Rausing: ‘We – the living – are the ghosts haunting the dead’

Reviews

<p>Compelling: Dalrymple highlights India’s ‘often forgotten position’ as a motor of global trade in ancient and early medieval times </p>

The history book that will transform your view of early civilisation

<p>The admission of ‘goofs’ is about as near as Johnson gets to self-discovery </p>

Boris Johnson’s memoir Unleashed is twisted, sour and full of lies

<p>Soulful: the new novel from Rooney deals with grief and age-gap relationships </p>

Sally Rooney ditches style that made her ‘voice of a generation’

<p>Tom Bower’s new book fails to shed much new light on the power couple </p>

Tom Bower’s Posh and Becks exposé won’t spice up your life

Lists

<p>Must-reads: the books you can’t miss in 2025 </p>

The books to read in 2025, from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Adam Kay

<p>Thriller: Meghann Fahy is part of ‘The Perfect Couple’s starry cast </p>

Love The Perfect Couple? These are the books and TV shows to try next

<p>With the rise of Instagram and BookTok, the importance of aesthetics in literature is on the rise </p>

Don’t judge a book by its cover: 15 of the most iconic book covers

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