Category Archives: Books

Michel Houellebecq sex film to be released despite attempt to stop it

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Amsterdam court dismisses French author’s complaint against film that shows him having sex with young women

A Dutch art collective can release an experimental erotic film showing the French novelist Michel Houellebecq having sex with young women in spite of the author’s attempt to stop its circulation, an Amsterdam court has ruled.

Amsterdam’s district court on Tuesday afternoon dismissed a legal complaint by Houellebecq and his wife, Qianyun Lysis, that had aimed to curb the distribution of the film KIRAC 27 by Keeping It Real Art Critics, as well as a trailer that was uploaded on the art collective’s website last month but has since been taken down.

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Simon Armitage savours spring ‘ecstasy and melancholy’ on World Poetry Day

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Poet laureate celebrates a plum tree in poem commissioned by the National Trust for its blossom campaign

The poet laureate, Simon Armitage, has written a new poem which pays homage to spring, in celebration of World Poetry Day.

Plum Tree Among the Skyscrapers is the first in a collection of poems inspired by blossom and commissioned by the National Trust. Its publication marks the beginning of the Trust’s annual blossom campaign, in which the charity will vow to bring blossom back to landscapes across the UK by planting 20m trees by 2030 to help tackle both the climate and nature crises.

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Export ban on Coleridge anti-slavery manuscript as British buyer sought

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Handwritten poem in Greek from his undergraduate years has recommended sale price of £20,400

A handwritten manuscript containing a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge railing against the slave trade has been temporarily barred from leaving the UK in the hope that a British buyer can be found.

The poem, written in Greek by Coleridge across six mottled pages, attacks the horrors of slavery and condemns those who overlooked the conditions of enslaved people on the Middle Passage transportation route in the late 18th century.

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Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel prize-winning Japanese writer, dies aged 88

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Fiction and essays tackled subjects including militarism and nuclear disarmament, innocence and trauma

Kenzaburo Oe, a giant of Japanese writing and winner of the Nobel prize in literature, has died aged 88.

Spanning fiction and essays, Oe’s work tackled a wide range of subjects from militarism and nuclear disarmament to innocence and trauma, and he became an outspoken champion for the voiceless in the face of what he regarded as his country’s failures. Regarded by some in Japan as distinctly western, Oe’s style was often likened to William Faulkner; in his own words, in his writing he would “start from my personal matters and then link it up with society, the state and the world”.

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French philosopher urges people to rebel – by making friends

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Geoffroy de Lagasnerie says focus on friendships over relationships or family is radical act in today’s society

Building your life around close friendships rather than family or romance is a joyous and necessary act of rebellion, and governments should put in place “friendship ministries” to radically rethink the way society is organised, a key French philosopher has argued.

Geoffroy de Lagasnerie this week publishes a manifesto for friendship, 3 Une Aspiration au Dehors, detailing his close friendship with two other writers, Didier Eribon and Édouard Louis. The three friends eat together in the evening, speak many times daily, wish each other goodnight and good morning every day and synch their schedules to make sure they prioritise friendship moments, namely meeting up for long chats. He described the friendship as the centre of their lives, “one long discussion that never ends”.

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Lost letters reveal how ‘desperate’ Shackleton charmed Falklanders to save stranded crew

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Explorer hid his torment as he regaled officials in Port Stanley with jokes and stories

The marine archaeologist who headed the 2022 Antarctic expedition that discovered the wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance has found two previously unknown letters which describe the explorer in the Falklands while he was trying to save 22 of his men stranded on the “hellish rock” of Elephant Island.

Ahead of today’s anniversary of the wreck’s discovery, Mensun Bound told the Observer that the correspondence is remarkable because there is no witness account of him in Port Stanley during this crucial period in 1916 after their ship had become trapped in ice.

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Boris Johnson recites Oompa-Loompas song in defence of Roald Dahl’s books

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Ex-PM criticises sensitivity edit of author’s works – and also rejects sending Parthenon marbles to Greece

Boris Johnson has criticised a publisher’s rewriting of some language in Roald Dahl’s stories by reciting a song by the Oompa-Loompas.

The former prime minister expressed his “irritation at wokeness and political correctness” after Puffin made extensive changes to the author’s work to remove language it deemed offensive.

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Spending on British libraries falls 17% as in-person visits soar

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Official figures show £9,982 was spent per 1,000 people on libraries by central and local government in England, Scotland and Wales last year, down from £11,970 the year before

Spending on libraries in Britain has fallen by 17%, according to new statistics, despite in-person visits increasing by 68% since the pandemic.

Figures released by CIPFA, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, show that in 2021/22 £9,982 was spent per 1,000 people on libraries by central and local government in England, Scotland and Wales. This was down from £11,970 in 2020/21 and £12,646 in 2018/19.

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Roald Dahl threatened publisher with ‘enormous crocodile’ if they changed his words

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Conversation with Francis Bacon emerges amid the row over updating controversial language in the children’s author’s books

One of Roald Dahl’s best-known characters was the Enormous Crocodile, “a horrid greedy grumptious brute” who “wants to eat something juicy and delicious”.

Now a conversation the author had 40 years ago has come to light, revealing that he was so appalled by the idea that publishers might one day censor his work that he threatened to send the crocodile “to gobble them up”.

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Adelaide Writers’ Week withdrawals ‘sad’ and ‘unfortunate’, director Louise Adler says

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Adler defends ‘courageous spaces to air opposing views’ as major sponsor and three Ukrainian writers pull out over comments from other invited authors

The Adelaide Writers’ Week director, Louise Adler, has vowed not to be dissuaded from creating space for “courageous” discussions of literature and opposing views, despite high-profile withdrawals and calls for her resignation.

Three Ukrainian writers and a major financial sponsor have withdrawn from next month’s Adelaide festival event in response to social media comments by two writers appearing at the event, Susan Abulhawa and Mohammed El-Kurd.

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Roald Dahl books rewritten to remove language deemed offensive

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Augustus Gloop now ‘enormous’ instead of ‘fat’, Mrs Twit no longer ‘ugly’ and Oompa Loompas are gender neutral

Roald Dahl’s children’s books are being rewritten to remove language deemed offensive by the publisher Puffin.

Puffin has hired sensitivity readers to rewrite chunks of the author’s text to make sure the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, resulting in extensive changes across Dahl’s work.

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HarperCollins refused appeal in defamation case over claims made in Scientology book

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High court decision relates to previous judgment on allegations of controversial psychiatric treatments at Sydney’s Chelmsford private hospital

HarperCollins has failed in a bid to have Australia’s highest court rule on legal issues in a defamation case over controversial psychiatric treatments at Sydney’s Chelmsford private hospital.

The high court on Friday refused special leave to appeal two aspects of a federal court decision overturning an earlier judgment. That earlier judgment found claims in Steve Cannane’s book Fair Game: The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia were substantially true.

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Forensic study finds Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was poisoned

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The toxin clostridium botulinum was in his body when he died in 1973, days after Chile’s military coup

One of the most enduring mysteries in modern Chilean history may finally have been solved after forensic experts determined that the Nobel prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda died after being poisoned with a powerful toxin, apparently confirming decades of suspicions that he was murdered.

According to the official version, Neruda – who made his name as a young poet with the collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair – died from prostate cancer and malnutrition on 23 September 1973, just 12 days after the military coup that overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of his friend, President Salvador Allende.

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Anne Boleyn’s reputation as ‘temptress’ to be recast in new exhibition

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Henry VIII’s second wife was a deeply religious woman who resisted his advances for years, according to fresh research

Anne Boleyn was found guilty of adultery, incest and conspiracy – all, almost certainly, false charges trumped up by Henry VIII – and then executed. For centuries, her reputation was that of a scheming seducer.

Now Anne is being recast as a deeply religious woman who, far from plotting to become Henry’s second wife, bade her time for six years as a lady-in-waiting to the king’s consort, Catherine of Aragon. She deliberately never consummated her relationship with Henry until their “unofficial” marriage in November 1532 – just two months before their formal wedding.

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Prosecutors likened Trump to mob boss and had to prove he wasn’t insane – book

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Mark Pomerantz, who was on New York team investigating tax affairs, reportedly compares ex-president to John Gotti

New York prosecutors building a case against Donald Trump for allegedly lying about his wealth for tax purposes had to show the former president was “not legally insane”, one of those prosecutors reportedly writes in an eagerly awaited new book.

The lawyer, Mark Pomerantz, also reportedly compares Trump, the only confirmed candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, to famous figures in the world of organised crime including John Gotti, the “Teflon Don” who died in prison in 2002.

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Sicilian mobster asks judge to order seizure of Roberto Saviano book

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Giuseppe Graviano files for defamation against Gomorrah author over origin of nickname

A Sicilian mobster has asked a judge to order the seizure of all copies of a book by the author Roberto Saviano, who is living under police protection after he faced death threats for exposing mafia secrets.

Giuseppe Graviano, who is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison, filed a lawsuit for defamation last week against the author of books including Gomorrah, and Solo è il Coraggio (Lonely is the Courage), about the life of the judge Giovanni Falcone, who was killed by the mafia in 1992.

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Washington Post condemns Pompeo for ‘vile’ Khashoggi ‘falsehoods’

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Fred Ryan says former secretary of state ‘outrageously misrepresents’ Post journalist murdered by Saudi Arabian regime

The publisher of the Washington Post, Fred Ryan, has blasted the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo for “outrageously misrepresenting” and “spreading vile falsehoods” about Jamal Khashoggi, the Post columnist murdered by the Saudi Arabian regime in 2018.

“It is shameful that Pompeo would spread vile falsehoods to dishonor a courageous man’s life and service and his commitment to principles Americans hold dear as a ploy to sell books,” Ryan said.

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Mike Pompeo dismisses ‘faux outrage’ over murder of Jamal Khashoggi

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Former Trump secretary of state claims US media depicted Washington Post columnist as ‘a Saudi Arabian Bob Woodward’

The former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has dismissed the indignation prompted by the murder of Jamal Khashoggi as “faux outrage” – and cast doubt on whether the Washington Post columnist was a genuine journalist at all.

In his new book, Pompeo says that Khashoggi – who was killed by Saudi agents in Istanbul in 2018 – was not “a Saudi Arabian Bob Woodward martyred for bravely criticising the Saudi royal family”.

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‘Medieval institution’: Commonwealth Guardian readers on Prince Harry’s Spare

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Comments range from ‘the monarchy is valuable’ to ‘Harry and Meghan are having their cake and eating it’

Last week, the tell-all autobiography by Prince Harry, Spare, was released and sold a combined 1,430,000 copies on its first day on sale in the US, Canada and the UK.

Here, readers from Commonwealth countries share their thoughts on Prince Harry, his new book and whether the controversies surrounding the royal family have changed their views towards the monarchy.

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Hong Kong police arrest six for selling ‘seditious’ book at lunar new year fair

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Six people accused of publishing book relating to 2019 protests in move critics say has spread terror

Police in Hong Kong have raided a lunar new year shopping fair and arrested six people for selling a “seditious” book related to the 2019 anti-government protests in a move critics say has spread “terror” just days before the celebrations.

National security officers accused three men and three women, aged between 18 and 62, of producing and publishing “a seditious book about a series of riots that occurred in Hong Kong from June 2019 to February 2020”, and selling it in a lunar new year stall in a shopping centre in Mong Kok, a bustling shopping district.

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