John Self

Ben Faccini took 20 years to write Other People’s Children, the story of a hassled man uncovering family secrets. It was worth it

From Naomi Ishiguro to Jess Atwood Gibson, more children of high profile writers are becoming authors themselves. Parents and their literary offspring discuss the pressures of measuring up

Political oppression in Tehran, a witch’s tale from France, a film-maker in Nazi Germany … we weigh up the contenders for the International Booker prize 2026

Agnes Owens is finally getting her due 100 years after her birth. Her reissued debut, Gentlemen of the West, packs in violence, revenge and a comic twist

This book is at heart an account of the records of the female patients in Cork District Lunatic Asylum at the turn of the 20th century

Covering the writer’s late teens and early twenties, this pleasurable read is an elegant account of self-development through art

In Villa Coca by Andrew Sean Greer, an enthusiastic young American rocks up at the Italian villa of an eccentric baroness with (almost) comic results

In his wicked comedy, The Girls, John Bowen takes us into the world of vicars, fêtes and murder in the Cotswolds of the 1970s

The final days of slavery in Africa’s Cape Colony are seen from three perspectives in First of December

In Contrapposto, the American writer proves he is talented — and rather pleased with himself