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Subscribe free to our weekly podcast, presented by editor of Guardian books Claire Armitstead, for author interviews, readings and discussions - plus a full recording of our monthly book club

Geneticist Steve Jones considers the Bible as a science book, while magician turned historian of psychology Peter Lamont demystifies the paranormal

Guardian books podcast: Novelist Bernadine Evaristo investigates how Maya Angelou's portrayal of her mother has changed in seven books spanning fifty years, Emma Brockes uncovers terrible secrets in her maternal family history, and anthologist Andre Gerard explains why they should all be called 'matremoirs'

Mark Haddon talks to the Guardian Review book club about the crossover bestseller which launched his career, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Michael Rosen goes to Berlin on the trail of Erich Kästner's boy sleuth from the children's classic Emil and the Detectives. Plus, Swiss German writer Rolf Dobelli explains The Art of Thinking Clearly

Claire Armitstead tours this year's London Book Fair to find what's selling and what is on its way, and we look at Granta's list of the Best Young British Novelists

Richard Ford talks to John Mullan and the Guardian Review book club about the novel which made his name, The Sportswriter

A selection of our best journalism across science, culture and sport in audio form

Jackie Kay pays tribute to the late Chinua Achebe, and Mohsin Hamid and Jim Crace join us to talk about their new political novels

Colm Tóibín reads from his reimagining of the life of the mother of Christ, The Testament of Mary, and answers questions from the Guardian Review Book Club

We examine what makes us who we are, with Andrew Solomon, Greg Bellow and Stephen Grosz

Draw up a chair and celebrate St Patrick's Day with readings from WB Yeats, Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey and Liam O'Flaherty

We expand our horizons with the publisher Christopher MacLehose, the French novelist Philippe Claudel and the launch of a series of short stories from writers around the world inspired by water

A special edition from Writers' week at the Adelaide festival, uncovering lost Australian classics, new Aboriginal literature and the best young poets

Jackie Kay rounds off our series of poets choosing their favourite poems with verses from Edwin Morgan's Love and a Life

David Harsent reads three short poems by the Greek poet Yannis Ritsos, in his own translations

Today John Burnside chooses The Retrieval System by Maxine Kumin, a look at doubling mirrored in its intricate rhyme scheme

Our series of poets reading favourite works continues with Paul Farley reading 'Innocence' by Patrick Kavanagh

Imtiaz Dharker launches our second week of poets choosing their favourite poems with a dazzling trio: One Art by Elizabeth Bishop, Meeting Point by Louis MacNeice and Yeshwant Rao by Arun Kolatkar

Alice Oswald rounds off the first week in our series of poets choosing their favourite poem with a reading of a nursery rhyme, There Was a Man of Double Deed

The latest podcast in our series of poets choosing their favourite poem finds Fleur Adcock reading Judith Wright's Request To A Year

Michael Symmons Roberts continues our series of poets choosing their favourite poems with a reading of John Donne's Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going To Bed

Fiona Sampson continues our series of poets choosing their favourite lines with two poems from George Herbert, Love and Heaven

One Yorkshire poet reads another as Simon Armitage continues our series of poets choosing their favourite verses with Ted Hughes's Full Moon and Little Frieda

Our series of poets choosing their favourite poem continues with Robin Robertson reading from David Jones's In Parenthesis

Jo Shapcott kicks off a new series of poets reading from their favourite work by another author. Shapcott picks Emily Dickinson

The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, reads from her collection Love Poems at a special Valentine's Day edition of the Guardian Book Club

Kate Summerscale talks about her prize-winning story of a bloody Victorian murder

We're on the trail of the best American crime writing, with Gillian Flynn, Joseph Wambaugh, Michael Koryta and Peter Messent

Are creative writing courses cultural powerhouses or an elaborate con? We drop in on a Birkbeck seminar, investigate the effects of teaching the craft of fiction and hear from Hugh Howey, who took a very different route to success

This week, women writers down the ages: from Jane Austen's most famous novel at 200, Sylvia Plath's at 50, and 2013's crop of prize winners

Claire Armitstead, Sarah Crown and The Bookseller's Benedicte Page bring us the books to look out for in 2013, and mathematician Daniel Tammet discusses the links between numbers and literature

Jorge Luis Borges's combination of the anecdotal, philosophical and the literary showed Will Self how to achieve the 'truly veridical'. He gets his coordinates from 'On Exactitude in Science'

Nathan Englander finds Jewish history, corruption and man's inhumanity to man and pigeons in Isaac Babel's 'The Story Of My Dovecote'

Forty years after he first read it, Sebastian Barry returns to James Joyce's short story Eveline

Rabindranath Tagore returned again and again to the voiceless women of Bengal, as in his short story The Postmaster, says Anita Desai

Lucy Wood builds a story from glimpses and suggestions in 'Notes from the House Spirits', says Jon McGregor

Yiyun Li reads William Trevor's 'Three People', a short story which moved her to write a story in reply, 'Gold Boy, Emerald Girl'

Penelope Fitzgerald looks at the world anew in her short story 'At Hiruharama', says AS Byatt

Franz Kafka's story of a man who starves himself for entertainment, The Hunger Artist, is 'absurb, moving and timely', says Hanif Kureishi

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie admires the 'old-fashioned social realism' of Ama Ata Aidoo's 'No Sweetness Here'

José Saramago tackles the conflict between mind and body in 'The Centaur', says Nadine Gordimer

Charles Dickens celebrated Christmas throughout his writing life. His autobiographical story 'A Christmas Tree' is 'almost Proustian', says Simon Callow

Ruth Rendell doesn't believe in ghosts, of course, but MR James's stories, like 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook', frighten her nonetheless

Despite their restraint, Raymond Carver's 'early-period' stories, such as The Student's Wife, are full to the brim, says Richard Ford

Zadie Smith launches our winter series of short stories with an almost 'anti-Italian' story from Giuseppe Pontiggia, 'Umberto Buti'

Hilary Mantel talks to John Mullan about her Man Booker prizewinning novels on the life of Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies. She also answers questions from the audience at a special Book Club in the Drapers Hall in the City of London, on the site of Cromwell's former home

Colm Tóibín reads a short story inspired by Heart of Darkness, written while he was living in A Room For London, a model of Joseph Conrad's boat positioned on the roof of London's South Bank Centre

Ice from Adam Gopnik, fire from Bee Wilson and a hymn of praise to the pleasures of handwriting in our Books podcast seasonal special

Philip Pullman reads from his new book of Grimm Tales and talks to John Mullan at the Guardian book club

During his week in A Room For London - a model boat on the roof of London's Queen Elizabeth Hall - Syrian poet Adonis talks to Nicholas Wroe about poetry, politics and London's literary greats

Kevin Powers, an American ex-soldier and poet, has won the Guardian first book award with The Yellow Birds. It's a novel about fighting, and surviving, the war in Iraq

Kurt Vonnegut's daughter Nanette rediscovers her father's funny side, and the creator of Bleak Expectations turns the radio hit into a novel

The artists Robert and Aline Crumb talk about Drawn Together, a book of 40 years-worth of strips they've been producing about themselves; plus, this year's Observer/Cape/Comica graphic short story winner

Novelist Kamila Shamsie takes her turn in A Room for London - a model boat on the top of the South Bank - and ruminates on Conrad, Virginia Woolf and the women adventurers of her own family

Rose Tremain tells how she began writing Restoration to restore the reputation of historical fiction

Thomas Keneally tells how he found a novel in a stash of nurses' journals, Sarah Wise on the ghosts of Victorian mental health and Brooke Magnanti on the Wellcome prize for medicine in literature

There's a huge appetite for reading biographies, and thousands are written each year. But is it still a relevant kind of writing? Three authors tell us their Life stories

We chart how maps have transformed the way we look at the world with Simon Garfield and Jerry Brotton

Hilary Mantel has taken the Man Booker prize for an historic second time with Bring Up the Bodies, the sequel to her 2009 winner on the life of Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall

Iain M Banks explains how his science fiction novel grew out of a quite different kind of story – and a misunderstanding of structuralism

We harvest the best of this year's crop of celebrity memoirs, including rock'n'roll legends Pete Townshend and Neil Young, and hear from Forward-winning poet Jorie Graham

Ahdaf Soueif, the latest writer to take up residence in A Room for London, muses on rivers, bridges and terminals as motifs in the history of oppression and resistance

We investigate a waspish essay on crime writing from Agatha Christie, Attica Locke considers race and history in the American south and Tanya Byrne tells us about young readers who are turning to crime

David Cameron and Tilda Swinton are among the readers of a new online version of Moby Dick; poet and novelist Robert Graves' last years on Mallorca are recalled by his great nephew Simon Gough

Teju Cole, the latest writer to take up residence in A Room for London, remembers a dinner with the great grouchy outsider VS Naipaul

As JB Priestley's classic, English Journey, is republished, the comedian Roy Hudd and Priestley's son Tom celebrate his legacy, while the Spanish novelist Javier Marías tells us what it's like to become a classic

Claire Armitstead reviews the Man Booker shortlist with reporter Alison Flood and arts correspondent Mark Brown

Zadie Smith tells us how her latest novel, NW, made the return journey to north London, while James Meek investigates the science of Tolstoy

We discuss the longlist for the 2012 Guardian first book award, which mixes fiction and nonfiction with a poetry collection chosen by our readers

This month's teen book club authors Margo Lanagan and Melvin Burgess read from and discuss their books Tender Morsels and Doing It, recorded at the Edinburgh books festivalFind out more about the teen book club with Melvin Burgess and Margo Lanagan

In the last of our Edinburgh podcasts, we look at the myths behind sharia law and the invasion of Afghanistan, while Carlos Gamerro examines the hold the Falkland Islands still exert on the Argentinian psyche

Dominican American writer Junot Diaz explores matters of the heart in masculine culture, Irish novelist Claire Kilroy explains why she set her new new novel against the mounting international debt crisis, and Paul Durcan hymns the crusty glories of the Irish loaf

Frank Westerman charts the bloodline of the Lipizzaner horse – beloved of Hitler, Stalin and Tito – while the godfather of all stuntmen, Vic Armstrong, reveals whether Tom Cruise really does his own stunts ...

Fifty years after the explosive International Writers Conference was held in Edinburgh, contemporary writes have gathered to revisit the themes their predecessors considered in 1962

Kirsty Gunn tells Charlotte Higgins how her new book The Big Music is structured like a piece of traditional bagpipe music. Kevin Barry tells Claire Armitstead that his short stories, while written in remote County Sligo, are based on his wide travels

Pat Barker, author of the first world war novel Regeneration, which became a trilogy of the same name, comes to a special session of the Guardian Book Club at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. She talks to Professor John Mullan.

Five poets shortlisted for the annual Edwin Morgan Poetry prize read their entries at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, then we tell you the winner

Translator David Bellos and author James Geary debate the challenge of metaphor, while novelists Anjali Joseph and Nikita Lalwani discuss writing about foreign countries

Jim Haynes remembers founding the original World Writers' Conference at Edinburgh 50 years ago. Plus Clive Stafford Smith and Raja Shehadeh

Should historical fiction be romantic, or politically accurate? Gillian Slovo and Hilary Mantel discuss their latest books, on Thomas Cromwell and Gordon of Khartoum. Elsewhere, Richard Holloway considers the problem of certainty in religion

In our podcast from day four of the festival, Booker longlisted author Ned Beauman muses on The Teleportation Accident and Alasdair Gray considers the independence vote for Scotland

In our podcast from day three of the festival, Nell Freudenberger talks about her novel The Newlyweds, and Jess Richards and Sjon discuss islands in literature, and Michael Sandel considers Paul Ryan's place on the US presidential campaign

Simon Mawer and Michèle Roberts discuss their books set in occupied France, Louise Welsh moves from Glasgow to Berlin and Maajid Nawaz tells of how he moved from Muslim militancy to starting a movement for democratic Islam

Frank Cottrell-Boyce on his new Chitty Chitty Bang Bang story, Andrew Motion on his follow-up to Treasure Island - Silver - and Paul Mason on what he now thinks about the revolutionary movements across the world: on the first day of Edinburgh Book Festival.

The Edinburgh International Book festival will welcome authors from 55 different countries, and include the first world writers conference in 50 years. Director Nick Barley previews some big names and we hear some participants from our own archive

The Congolese-born novelist is the latest writer to take up residency in A Room for London atop the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. Listen to the thoughts inspired by his stay

We round up this summer's hottest books to pack in your suitcase – or download on to your e-reader – with the Booker-longlisted Deborah Levy and Twitter hit Keith Ridgway

Gore Vidal, who died yesterday, made his last visit to the UK in 2008, during the run-up to the US election. He appeared at the Hay Festival, and spoke to Claire Armitstead about his views on Obama's prospects for victory, and what it would take to make him proud to be an American

Every writer is first a reader – a solitary experience which Siri Hustvedt addresses head on in her latest collection of essays. Ben Lerner tells us about the books which inspired his debut novel, and we hear from The Bookshop Band

Sebastian Faulks comes to the Guardian Review Book Club to talk about his first world war novel, Birdsong, with Professor John Mullan

Get set for the London Olympics with a stack of books to put your literary life into training including fiction from Alexander MacLeod and Ben Fountain

In the last in our series, Alice Oswald takes Madeleine Bunting for a walk along the river Dart and explains why, for her, water represents the complexity of putting an ever-changing landscape in to words

Artist and writer Rachel Lichtenstein takes Madeleine Bunting to Whitechapel in east London to revisit her own past and consider a place that has changed dramatically since her grandparents arrived there in the 1930s

Robert Macfarlane kicks off our three-part series about literature and landscape. He takes Madeleine Bunting to the mysterious landscape of Orford Ness, a decommissioned nuclear testing site now owned by the National Trust

Is positive thinking the route to happiness? Oliver Burkeman and Jules Evans make the case for looking on the dark side, while the narrator of Joanna Kavenna's latest novel takes off in search of a new way of living

The Booker-winning novelist is the sixth writer to take up residency in A Room for London on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank. Listen to the thoughts inspired by his stay

What riches are to be found in the lesser-known languages of Europe? We talk to Clive Boutle and Paul Gubbins about the pleasures of publishing on the edge, and welcome the poet Gillan Clarke, who is headlining a festival of poetry and music in both Welsh and English

Can graphic design help novelists tell stories fit for a visual age, or is the future of fiction to be found in traditional narrative?

Maya Jasanoff talks to Maev Kennedy about staying in the Room for London on the top of the South Bank Centre and reads her essay about the experience

The death of Carlos Fuentes sounded the end of the Latin American Boom. But who are the South American writers following in the footsteps of Márquez and Vargas Llosa, and what next for the continent's poets?

Headlines from latimes.com

Marcia Coyle skillfully reports on the aggressive turn the Supreme Court has taken under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

At his confirmation hearings for the position of chief justice of the United States, John G. Roberts Jr. parried skeptics with a reassuring metaphor: "Judges are like umpires," he memorably testified. "Umpires don't make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical to make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role."

The novelist takes on the idea that sins committed in pursuing national goals will be forgiven and forgotten.

John le Carré's novels have responded brilliantly to the absence of the Cold War, which was, from 1963's classic "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" to "The Secret Pilgrim" in 1990, their traditional domain.

Stuart David, a founding member of Belle & Sebastian and its original bass player, will write a memoir about his time in the seminal indie pop band.

Stuart David, a founding member of Belle & Sebastian and its original bass player, will write a memoir about his time in the seminal indie pop band. The book, "In the All-Night Cafe," will be published by Little, Brown's Abacus imprint in the U.K. in spring 2015.

The Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes is the subject of a small, literary boom on the anniversary of his death.

The Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes is the subject of a small, literary boom on the anniversary of his death.

Happy publication day to Dan Brown, whose latest Robert Langdon thriller, "Inferno," officially hits shelves Tuesday. Online, it's already declared its dominance: It's Amazon's No. 1 bestselling book.

Happy publication day to Dan Brown, whose latest Robert Langdon thriller, "Inferno," officially hits shelves Tuesday. Online, it's already declared its dominance: It's Amazon's No. 1 bestselling book -- thanks to preorders, it has been in the website's top 100 books for 119 days.

A few weeks ago, I met Walter Mosley on Pico Boulevard near Fairfax, around the corner from where he was raised. This is a neighborhood that still fuels Mosley¿s imagination.

A few weeks ago, I met Walter Mosley on Pico Boulevard near Fairfax, around the corner from where he was raised. This is a neighborhood that still fuels Mosley’s imagination; it’s where his detective Easy Rawlins lives, and where a good deal of his new novel, “Little Green,” takes place.

Carlos Rojas' inventive novel 'Ingenious Gentleman' and a new edition of the poet-playwright's 'Poet in New York' bring the writer back to life.

The great poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca was already one of Spain's most popular writers when he was executed by right-wing militiamen in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. His body has never been found. The shadowy circumstances of murder, together with the posthumous publication of several more of his plays and poetry collections, have only fed the Lorca legend.

The writer and co-founder of Sister Spit talks about trading memoirs for a young adult fantasy trilogy.

NEW YORK — Michelle Tea has been a horoscope writer, an activist and a sex worker. She never graduated from college, but she has written a novel, a poetry collection and four memoirs — one of which, "Valencia," is being made into an independent film by 21 filmmakers. As co-founder of the literary performance group Sister Spit, she's led troupes of performance poets and artists across the United States and Europe.

Picking up where 'Red Azalea' left off, 'The Cooked Seed' explores the hardships of her path to American citizenship.

By the time Anchee Min made it to America in 1984, she was "considered a 'cooked seed' — no chance to sprout." As she explains in her new memoir, "I was 27 years old and life had ended for me in China. I was Madame Mao's trash, which meant I wasn't worth spit."

The seemingly dead detective is back in 'Little Green.' In an interview, Mosley discusses his legendary character as he wanders his old Mid-City neighborhood -- also Rawlins' home turf.

When last we saw Walter Mosley's detective Easy Rawlins, he had just lost control of a car he was driving on the Pacific Coast Highway north of Malibu. This was in the closing pages of the 11th (and apparently final) Rawlins book, "Blonde Faith," published in 2007. "The back of my car hit something hard," Easy tells us, "a boulder no doubt. Something clenched down on my left foot and pain lanced up my leg. I ignored this, though, realizing that in a few seconds, I'd be dead."

Books

In “City of Ambition,” Mason B. Williams explores what drove a patrician Democrat and a street-smart Republican to revive New York City from the Great Depression.

The title of Sheryl Sandberg’s manifesto, “Lean In,” quickly became ubiquitous.

Helene Wecker discusses her debut novel, “The Golem and the Jinni.”

“Uncanny Avengers” is No. 2 on the hardcover list.

Reading collections of fiction from the 1940s and 1990s for classics and rediscovered gems.

Charles Kingsley’s 150-year-old morality fable reflects the contradictory impulses of the Victorian era.

At the center of the plot lines in Jean Thompson’s novel is a philanthropist who wants to bribe people into virtue.

“Happy, Happy, Happy” by Phil Robertson is No. 1 on the hardcover nonfiction list — the second best seller spawned by the reality show “Duck Dynasty.”

Paperback books of particular interest.

Recently reviewed books of particular interest.

New books by Rebecca Miller, Louisa Hall, Thea Goodman, MacKenzie Bezos and Naomi Alderman.

The digital-age transparency we’ve grown accustomed to may threaten the spirit of democracy, Evgeny Morozov warns.

William Gaddis’s letters reveal the struggle and self-doubt behind the novels.

A novel and essay collection by Elinor Lipman showcase her urbanity and optimism.

From the birth of the Republican Party to the Spanish-American War, John Hay was a seminal 19th-century figure.

A comprehensive collection of Ernest Hemingway’s novels, nonfiction and short stories.

Stuck in traffic with David Sedaris.

Recording an audiobook requires talent, discipline and a lot of coffee.

Fiona Maazel’s antic new novel examines the contradictory but concurrent urges for solitude and intimacy.

The troubles of Tom Drury’s characters seem to stretch back into the inscrutable past, and out into an equally murky future.

Brian Stelter recounts the intrigue, infighting and personal crises in the morning TV shows’ ratings wars.

An unhappy woman discovers a distressing secret in Patrick McGrath’s novel.

Changes to the best-seller lists and this column, Open Book, are new to the Book Review.

In “The Third Coast,” Thomas Dyja describes Chicago before and after World War II, when that city was a greenhouse for skyscrapers, McDonald’s and rock music.

In Helene Wecker’s novel, two folkloric creatures emerge onto the streets of 1899 New York.