novels

Retellings of classic novels are having a bit of a moment: both Sandra Newman’s feminist take on Nineteen Eighty-Four, Julia, and Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer-winning modernised David Copperfield, Demon Copperhead have made a splash in the last couple of years, while Percival Everett’s reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, James, will hit bookshops in April.If each work of art builds on what came before it, the novels below take indebtedness to the next level. With riffs and rewritings, playful challenges…

Two new graphics novels based on From Software's Bloodborne and Dark Souls series are on the way, giving fans a new way to explore these bleak fantasy worlds in the coming months. Bloodborne: The Bleak Dominion and Dark Souls: The Willow King are available to preorder now at Amazon.Bloodborne: The Bleak DominionBloodborne: The Bleak DominionThe first of the two new releases, Bloodborne: The Bleak Dominion, is written by Cullen Bunn and illustrated by Piotr Kowalski. The Bleak Dominion is a sequel to…

1. LibreOfficeThis is where the magic happens. I write all of my first draft manuscripts in the open-source LibreOffice. There are several reasons why this is my word processor of choice, but it boils down to efficiency and customization. Not only does LibreOffice include the usual tools like spellcheck, but it's possible to create customizations that can help lead to a more efficient workflow. One of them is as simple as customizing the UI to better fit the way you work. Another is to edit styles such that you do not…

Denise Dorrance’s graphic memoir, Polar Vortex, is enchanting, every page lovely to look at, so funny and plangent and full of sly wisdom. But it’s also (dread word) strikingly relevant. Its principal subject being old age, by rights it should bring vast crowds of new readers to comics. There can, after all, be few people now who haven’t at least some experience of caring for – or just worrying about – an older relative, as the author does in her book; even those who aren’t yet there know full well what lies ahead: the…

The beauty of the traditional campus novel is that it’s rarely reflective of most students’ actual experience – at least not in the UK. High stakes interpersonal drama, soft-serve Marxism and ivy-covered stone are less the modern student experience than terrible housing, dating-app ghosting and a staple diet of Super Noodles and own-brand vodka. It’s unsurprising, then, that tales of a more enlightened student experience are perennially popular.These five novels offer a glimpse into the gilded world of high-level academia…

In a post-print and post-truth era, the ever-expanding world of fiction shapes the human longing for creative fulfilment and emotional connection. The popularity of fiction, especially novels, owes much to its subversion of cultural and social hierarchies and the depiction of the reversal of the political system. The novel, an exemplary act of communication, picks holes in all that we hold dear. Mikhail Bakhtin, philosopher and literary theorist (Wikimedia Commons) Fiction is more than the nuanced elucidation…

Like thousands of French people, Sylvie Pinault discovered comic books during the pandemic. Though bandes dessinées – literally meaning “drawn strips” and often simply referred to as BD or bédé – are venerated in France as the “ninth art”, the 52-year-old had preconceptions about them being for children. That changed at the start of 2020, when her partner suggested they go to the gigantic comic-book festival in Angoulême. The following year, with the country locked down, the limpid cover of Léonie Bischoff’s graphic novel…

It was approaching midnight on Monday when author Sarah J Maas entered a New York City bookstore to surprise fans celebrating the imminent publication of her latest novel, House of Flame and Shadow. As she walked towards the stage, wearing a Valentino bouclé tweed skirt, the crowd realised what was happening, and began to scream.“Look at you guys, what the fuck? This is amazing!” she shouted. Not many authors are treated to a rockstar reception like this – but Maas’s books, the most popular of which are the Throne of…

The Aya story began two decades ago, when Marguerite Abouet, a Parisian legal assistant with roots in Ivory Coast, got together with Clément Oubrerie, an animator and children’s book illustrator, to produce a graphic novel inspired by her African childhood. That book eventually became a bestselling series, one loved and acclaimed for its vivid portrayal of life in Ivory Coast in the 1970s, a period during which the country experienced an economic boom. Since translated into 15 languages, it made both Abouet and her…

Jonathan Escoffery, 43, was born in Texas and lives in Oakland, California. His debut, If I Survive You, about a second-generation Jamaican in Miami, where Escoffery grew up, was shortlisted for last year’s Booker and is currently on the shortlist of the Gordon Burn prize, announced on 7 March. The novelist Rumaan Alam has called it “a reminder of what fiction can do... It’s truly a feat that a book of short stories tackling such big stuff – family, love, violence, race – could be so damn funny.”What did it mean to be…