Features & interviews

<p>Music-Books-Bernie Taupin</p>

Interview

Bernie Taupin on his delirious decades at the top with Elton John

‘Rocket Man’, ‘Your Song’, ‘Tiny Dancer’, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, ‘I’m Still Standing’... Bernie Taupin has written the lyrics for so many Elton John classics he can barely remember half of them. That may have something to do with his boozy Caribbean escapades in the 1970s — and the addiction support he was giving his lifelong friend and songwriting partner, he tells Craig McLean

Books of the month, from JM Coetzee to Madonna

<p>Sebastian Faulks is due to release his 16th novel ‘The Seventh Son’ </p>

Interview

Sebastian Faulks on rewriting Bond, literary trends and his new novel

<p>Author Tom Crewe (and Oscar Wilde): ‘People think about clothes, buildings, ideas before they think about someone having an erection in 1894’</p>

Interview

Did Oscar Wilde set back gay rights? Tom Crewe on why the playwright is no hero

<p>WH Auden, one of the 20th century’s best-loved poets, died 50 years ago </p>

in focus

The brilliant, eccentric life of poet WH Auden

<p>Sara Pascoe: ‘You’re supposed to be very, very grateful if IVF works’ </p>

Interview

Sara Pascoe: ‘In my thirties, I was suddenly a “childless woman”’

<p>Chatty, fun, argumentative, fearless, and ferociously well-informed, Beard’s history presents the Roman world and ours as contiguous, but separate</p>

mccrum on books

Mary Beard: maverick don or book club historian?

<p>Next to her habitual four-letter vocabulary, ‘naughty’ is a word Miriam Margolyes wears on her sleeve</p>

In Focus

Mrs Tiggy-Winkle or tour de farce? The mystery of Miriam Margolyes

<p>A crowd gathers at the Baillie Gifford Marquee during Henley Literary Festival</p>

preview

Henley Literary Festival preview: from Theresa May to Sebastian Faulks

<p>Osman’s ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ sold 45,000 copies in its first three days and has been the bestselling book in the UK since then</p>

in focus

How Richard Osman became the biggest author in Britain

<p>Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge returns in the podcast ‘From the Oasthouse’, another multi-hour marathon of precision-tooled comedy from the Gibbons brothers </p>

Alan Partridge is back again – could GB News be on the cards?

<p>The highs and lows of Susannah Constantine’s life are laid bare in her memoir ‘Ready For Absolutely Nothing’ </p>

Interview

Susannah Constantine on survival, Strictly and splitting with Trinny

Reviews

<p>The best of September’s book releases</p>

Books of the month, from Sebastian Faulks to Zadie Smith

<p>‘Tom Lake’ and ‘Cheri’ are also among the month’s recommendations</p>

Books of the Month, from Anna Funder to Richard Russo

<p>A selection of the most exciting books set for release this month </p>

Books of the month: From Eleanor Catton to Sebastian Barry

<p>The best of February’s book releases </p>

Books of the month: From Salman Rushdie to Blake Morrison

Lists

<p>Lisa Taddeo and Saba Sams are two authors who have shed light on female desire </p>

Nine books that got women’s desire right

<p>Zadie Smith, Deborah Levy, Salman Rushdie, Prince Harry and Elliot Page will all release books in 2023</p>

The best books of 2023, from Prince Harry to Zadie Smith

<p>Cormac McCarthy and Ali Smith also make the list </p>

The 20 best books of the year, from Claire Keegan to Jonathan Coe

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