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James Runcie: 'I want a cross between the Open University and a party'

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:04:56 GMT

Seven months ago, James Runcie found himself inextricably double-booked: as the outgoing artistic director of the Bath Literature Festival, he was expected to pack his swansong with fireworks, while as the incoming director of the London Literature Festival, which opens tonight, he was under pressure to begin with a bang.

Prize-winning author Alice Walker gives support to David Icke on Desert Island Discs

Sun, 19 May 2013 14:47:42 GMT

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker has voiced her support for the work of controversial British conspiracy theorist David Icke on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.

Prize-winning author Alice Walker voices support for David Icke on Desert Island Discs

Sun, 19 May 2013 14:47:42 GMT

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker has voiced her support for the work of controversial British conspiracy theorist David Icke on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.

The Trundlers: Underrate Them at Your Peril... By Harry Pearson

Sat, 18 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Cricket's quickies and spinners tend to get far more attention than the medium-pace men, but the pantheon of seamers, swingers and off-stump naggers celebrated here by Harry Pearson reminds us what an integral part of the game bowlers operating largely in the 50-75mph zone have been down the years.

Review: The Humans, By Matt Haig

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Matt Haig's new novel, his fifth for adults, is a wryly humorous look at the human condition as seen by an alien. The narrator comes from the planet Vonnadoria, where life is based around maths, logic and rationality, with no messy emotions to clutter up the immortal existence. So far, so Mr Spock, but the interest comes from the narrator's mission. A professor of maths at Cambridge University, Andrew Martin, has solved the Riemann hypothesis, a real mathematical conundrum involving prime numbers. Vonnadorians believe that this holds the key to space travel, so the narrator's job is to exterminate Martin and anyone to whom he has divulged his discovery.

Review: Big Brother, By Lionel Shriver

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Lionel Shriver is famous for two things: her prize-winning novel about motherhood, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and her personal obsession with diet and exercise. Big Brother conflates the two in being about a woman's reaction to her brother's obesity.

Photography book review: New Fashion Photography, Compiled by Paul Sloman, Introduction by Tim Blanks

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

The 21st century has seen dramatic changes in photography, technology, fashion, and art.

Review: And the Mountains Echoed, By Khaled Hosseini

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

The Afghan-American Khaled Hosseini's career as a novelist has not been prolific – this is only his third book in the course of 10 years – but he has made up for it in impact: sales for the first two, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, exceed 38 million copies worldwide. These beautifully written epics of the oft bloody history of the land of his birth over the past 60 years have justifiably earned him a reputation as a great storyteller and he must have felt the weight of expectation on him when constructing number three. I'm pleased to discover that it's a worthy successor.

The Blagger's Guide To: Dr Johnson and James Boswell

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

It was 250 years ago last Thursday, at about 7pm, that the most famous meeting in the history of English literature took place in the back parlour of a bookseller in Covent Garden. James Boswell, the 9th Laird of Auchinleck, was sitting there quietly drinking his tea when in walked Samuel Johnson. The two eventually became firm friends, Boswell started to document everything that Johnson said and did, and the art of biography as we know it was born.

Invisible Ink: No 173 - Robert M Pirsig

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

In the roll-call of student summer reading certain volumes stand out, including Desmond Morris's body language phenomenon The Naked Ape and Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull. To those can be added a volume by Robert M Pirsig that snuggled its way into every hitchhiker's hand-crocheted body satchel. Unlike Bach, whose books were like being hit with a wiffle bat full of pot-pourri, Pirsig is the real deal. Born in 1928, this precocious university student was eventually expelled for studying too hard, after growing bewildered by the choice of multiple hypotheses in his chosen field, biochemistry. Overwhelmed by the limitations of science, he tackled Eastern philosophy instead, spending time in India before returning to a US college.

Between the Covers 19/05/2013

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Congratulations to The Independent on Sunday's "Invisible Ink" columnist Christopher Fowler, who is shortlisted for three awards at this year's CrimeFest. The HRF Keating Award is for the best biography or critical book related to crime fiction published between 2008 and 2012, and Fowler is nominated for the book of his "Invisible Ink" columns. His novel Bryant & May and the Invisible Code is also nominated for both the Goldboro Last Laugh Award, for humorous crime novels, and the eDunnit award for crime fiction published in both paper and ebook formats. If he were to win in all three, Fowler stands to take home up to £1,000 in prize money and three commemorative Bristol Blue Glass vases, to which Between the Covers promises to add a big bunch of tulips. CrimeFest (crimefest.com) is in Bristol from 30 May to 2 June. Good luck, Chris!

Mark Billingham: 'Just open your eyes'

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

About an hour into my interview with Mark Billingham, the conversation turns to suicide. We are sitting, a little incongruously given the subject-matter, in the plush Thameside offices of his publisher. The reason for the grim discussion is Billingham's new novel, The Dying Hours, an ingenious police procedural driven by several seemingly unconnected people killing themselves. For his regular hero, Tom Thorne, there is no such thing as "seemingly unconnected", and he begins his usual dogged investigation.

Paperback review: The Art of Leaving, By Anna Stothard

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Eva Elliott no sooner starts a relationship than she is wondering how to get out of it, and worries that there is something odd about her tendency "to think so often about endings". That's until she meets the dashing barrister Luke, who would seem to offer her lasting happiness. But when an old friend of his, the glamorous Grace, arrives on the scene, Eva feels threatened – and her feet begin to itch once more.

Paperback reivew: Earthbound, By Paul Morely

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Earthbound is part of a new Penguin series, in which authors discuss their favourite London Underground lines. Paul Morley's effort, which focuses on the Bakerloo, takes the form of an enjoyably meandering and opinionated essay – he recounts his own experiences as a bewildered commuter, weaving in digressions on Krautrock, modernist architecture and Impressionist painting.

Paperback review: Skio, By Michael Frayn

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Michael Frayn's ingeniously clever, riotously silly novel is set on the eponymous Greek island, where a charitable foundation is preparing to host a gala dinner for an array of important guests. The keynote speaker, bumptious Dr Norman Wilfred – an authority in "Scientometrics" – arrives only to find that someone else has commandeered his luggage.

Paperback review: Diving Belles, By Lucy Wood

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Lucy Wood's beguiling debut collection is set along the coastlines of her native Cornwall, and draws on a rich Cornish tradition of myth and folklore. In these tales, children play among the bleached bones of giants; young women are transformed into standing stones on clifftops; ageing pensioners plunge beneath the waves to search for spouses lost at sea.

Paperback review: Banksy, The Man Behind the Wall, By Will Ellsworth-Jones

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

I've long been sceptical of Banksy, what with his PR-driven cult of anonymity and faux-naÏf public statements.

Review: The Shining Girls, By Lauren Beukes

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

You wait ages for a time-travelling serial-killer thriller and then two come along at the same time. But where AK Benedict's The Beauty of Murder chose an academic and philosophical approach, Lauren Beukes's The Shining Girls goes straight for the Hollywood jugular (elevator pitch: Se7en meets Back to the Future; or, perhaps more accurately, Sever meets Back to the Suture).

What Do You See When You Close Your Eyes?, by Moss Project

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:00:09 GMT

When the composer and performer Moss Freed finished recording his new jazz album What Do You See When You Close Your Eyes?, he wondered what kind of response it might elicit from the listener, and approached some writers to see if they might put it into words. As a result the album includes a collection of short stories by Colum McCann, Joe Dunthorne, Lawrence Norfolk, Hanan al-Shaykh, James Miller and Naomi Alderman.

Review: What Do You See When You Close Your Eyes?, By Moss Project

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:00:09 GMT

The Saturday miscellany: Feminist classics; Anna Wintour; Clerkenwell Design Week; Curiosity: Art and the Pleasures of Knowing; Louis Vuitton

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Culture clash: Feminist classics

Five-minute memoir: Russ Litten recalls the day he saw his double in Prague

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

I know nobody in Prague, not a soul, which is one of the main reasons I decide to move there. The last person I expect to see is myself. I always thought that the Doppelgänger only existed in Edgar Allen Poe tales. But I see mine in Prague.

Leaving Alexandria, By Richard Holloway

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:00:43 GMT

This excellent memoir crystallises current debates on the church, homosexuality and women's ordination.

Arcadia, By Lauren Groff

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:00:32 GMT

Poppy-seed cake, polygamy and patchouli are just some of the ingredients of Seventies communal life recalled in this sensuous novel.

Clever Girl, By Tessa Hadley

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:00:24 GMT

Ten-year-old Stella lives with her widowed mum in rented rooms in run-down Sixties Bristol. Top of the class, Stella loves horses and reading. When her mother remarries and they move, teenage Stella meets Valentine. With his Caravaggio cheekbones and intellectual swagger, he lures her away from The Forsyte Saga towards Beckett and Burroughs, from hoping to meet boys on the school bus to the ecstasy of drugs and bohemian posturing.