After criticism of the ‘casual racism’ of a story about a Chinese boy, the publisher has taken it out of the next print run of the bestselling anthology David Walliams’ story about a Chinese boy called Brian Wong, which was criticised by campaigners f…
Burntcoat by Sarah Hall review – sex on the eve of destruction
A sculptor recalls her fling with a restaurateur as the world succumbs to a deadly virus in Hall’s urgent lockdown taleThe pandemic novels are coming. While lockdown hovered just out of eyeline in Rachel Cusk’s Second Place and provided a coda to Sally…
Does practice make perfect?
Prodigies such as Emma Raducanu spend thousands of hours honing their skills, but could anyone deliver a world-class performance with enough dedication?At the end of every edition of his children’s TV show Record Breakers, Roy Castle used to sing: “If …
Paul Auster: ‘It’s distress that generates art’
The novelist on his latest work, an 800-page tribute to the American author Stephen Crane, and why the greatest writers are monomaniacsPaul Auster is in bed. We’re speaking on the telephone and it’s in his bedroom that his reception is best. “I much pr…
My frame is true: new wave posters – in pictures
Andrew Krivine began collecting music industry flyers and posters in 1977 on his annual trip from the US to see family in London. “I’d go on expeditions to Camden Market, Rough Trade, Stiff Records and even brazenly walk into the headquarters of Virgin…
The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgård review – bloated and inconsequential
His fondness for pulverising detail has always been divisive; here it fatally undermines his return to the novelTo me, a passage from Karl Ove Knausgård’s 2004 novel A Time for Everything has always seemed illustrative of his approach:the fact that the…
Dracula: The Untold Story review – a wild gothic thrill ride
Leeds PlayhouseFor a tale of the undead, Imitating the Dog’s inventive blend of live theatre and tech is bursting with lifeHaving tackled zombies in its most recent production, Night of the Living Dead – Remix, the Leeds company Imitating the Dog now t…
Geoengineering by Gernot Wagner review – a stark warning
Spraying aerosols into the atmosphere may be fraught with risk, but to dismiss it out of hand is irresponsible, a climate scientist arguesGernot Wagner has spent a large part of his life thinking about solar geoengineering, and even he thinks it is “nu…
‘The woke’ are just the latest faux enemies of Englishness conjured up by the right | Patrick Wright
The myth of a silenced English majority betrayed by a liberal metropolitan elite goes back decadesPatrick Wright is the author of The Village That Died for England: Tyneham and the Legend of Churchill’s PledgeLike some of the emeritus professors who ha…
Origin story of Dennis the Menace’s jumper to be revealed
To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Beano’s longest-running character, comic strip The Epic Yarn of Awesomeness will tell the garment’s backstoryCruella de Vil was recently given a new backstory by Disney; the Wicked Witch of the West’s past was r…