As the British writer’s tale of a media family’s power struggle returns to TV, we chart his path from Peep Show to global award-winning famePulsing away unobserved, inside a room near Brixton underground station, is the heart of a callous transatlantic…
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…
Miniskirts, Stones, pop art: why the swinging 60s will never go out of fashion
Vibrant prints, tunics and knee-high boots are back on the couture catwalk – more than 50 years after the first ‘youthquake’The new exhibition at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum, Beautiful People: The Boutique in 1960s Counterculture, might have be…
Meet the real Helen Levitt, New York’s most intimate chronicler
A retrospective of the US street photographer overturns conventional wisdom about her work, revealing it as political and human, as well as demonstrating her acute eye for the unusual and telling imageThe American poet and cultural critic David Levi St…
On my radar: Sam Fender’s cultural highlights
The Tyneside rocker on his favourite bath time podcast, a second world war memoir and where to get the best breakfast kippersSam Fender was born in 1994 and raised in North Shields. He began writing songs aged 14, building on an affinity with Bruce Spr…
Elijah Wood: ‘I still have a pair of Hobbit feet in my house’
The 40-year-old actor on living with Frodo, coping with fans and why he loves fatherhoodI grew up in a blue-collar, working-class family in Cedar Rapids in Iowa. My dad worked at the box factory, and my mum worked at the Quaker Oats factory. Eventually…
One to watch: John
This London punk duo honed their ferocious sound during lockdown and ended up on BBC 6 Music’s playlistHaving met at university, south London-based John Newton (drums and vocals) and Johnny Healey (guitar) were initially part of a trio before realising…
The rise of ‘citizen sleuths’: the true crime buffs trying to solve cases
Inspired by hit podcasts and documentaries, ordinary people are trying to track down fugitives and reopen cold cases. But should they be?Although the story you are about to read involves a fugitive, law enforcement and a six-month chase across Mexico, …
Original Observer Photography
Anthony Joshua’s defeat, Bond star Lashana Lynch, and Mercury prize winner Arlo Parks – the best photography commissioned by the Observer in September 2021 Continue reading…