Robert Harris: ‘I'm not sure you can be the world’s superpower and remain a...
As the stage adaptation of his Cicero trilogy transfers to the West End, Robert Harris explains why the Roman politician’s story speaks to our age of populismThere is a particular pleasure for Robert...
View ArticleBook clinic: what are the best novels about ancient Greeks and Romans?
From the Odyssey to a toga-clad detective, Natalie Haynes picks her favourite fiction about classical antiquityOther than Madeline Miller and Mary Renault, what literature can I read that explores the...
View ArticleTop 10 books about building cities | Jonathan Carr
From Mary Beard’s Roman history to Kim Stanley Robinson’s science fiction, Jonathan Carr chooses the best writing about citizens’ eternal challengesA big city is rather like an overcrowded cruise ship,...
View ArticleJohn le Carré and Neil Gaiman join writers warning Brexit is 'choosing to lose'
Letter to the Guardian signed by many of UK’s most celebrated authors urges voters to support the EU in Thursday’s poll – or prepare for economic damage Letter: To choose Brexit is to choose to...
View ArticleThe Second Sleep by Robert Harris review – a ‘genre-bending thriller’
The future Britain looks medieval in Robert Harris’s dystopian tale. But who ruined everything?“All of my books are about power,” Robert Harris acknowledged in a recent interview. While that power is...
View ArticleThe Second Sleep by Robert Harris review – an elegant, post-apocalyptic thriller
A priest investigates a vicar’s untimely death in a future Britain where reason is banished by dogmaOne of the ways you know a good novel is by the other books you reach for as comparisons. Robert...
View ArticleOf course fiction tells someone else’s story | Letters
Readers respond to the idea of cultural appropriation in literature and the assumption that only those with lived experience are able to tell an authentic storyThank heavens for some sense on the...
View ArticleBeyond Mantel: the historical novels everyone must read
From Francis Spufford to Sarah Waters, contemporary writers have brought new complexity and playfulness to historical fictionReaders of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies can be in no doubt about where...
View ArticleV2 by Robert Harris review – fears of a rocket man
The Nazis’ V2 rocket programme is seen through the eyes of a conflicted German and a female air force office in a familiar but absorbing thrillerAs the second world war hurtled towards its climax, the...
View ArticleOriginal Observer photography
Sir Ian McKellen, a seafood bonanza, and secrets of the pet detectives – the best photography commissioned by the Observer in June 2021Continue reading...
View ArticleRobert Harris: ‘My method is usually to start a book on 15 January and finish...
The bestselling authoronthe dearth of top-quality politicians, his regard for diaries and letters, and his disciplined writing approachRobert Harris is the author of 14 novels, including the...
View ArticleHow leading thriller writer helped reveal plagiarism of Emmy prizewinner
Robert Harris, whose second world war film was copied, tells how the scandal led to George Stevens Jr being stripped of his awardsIt was a just few seconds of vivid footage: joyous scenes of American...
View Article‘Chamberlain was a great man’: why has the PM fooled by Hitler been recast as...
He is seen as the appeaser who fell for Hitler’s lies. But was Chamberlain scapegoated? Writer Robert Harris and actor Jeremy Irons discuss taking on history with their controversial new film“Any...
View ArticleMunich: The Edge of War review – an elegant what-if twist on wartime history
Jeremy Irons is on top form as Neville Chamberlain in a Robert Harris adaptation that melds fact with enjoyable fictionThere’s a great turn from Jeremy Irons as the careworn appeaser Neville...
View ArticleMunich: The Edge of War review – handsome if muted take on Robert Harris’s...
Jeremy Irons as Neville Chamberlain leads this Netflix adaptation of the novelist’s conspiracy story set on the eve of the second world warPlush offices, candlelit speakeasies and tasteful walled...
View ArticleMunich by Robert Harris audiobook review – inside the backrooms of power
David Rintoul is the authoritative narrator of this thriller about the negotiations between Neville Chamberlain and Hitler in the leadup to the second world warA gripping account of the negotiations...
View ArticleMeet the former Nazi rocket scientist who all too accurately saw the future |...
As well as serving in the SS and a second act as a Nasa engineer, Wernher von Braun wrote a Martian sci-fi novel with a prescient twist…I recently read (and greatly enjoyed) V2, Robert Harris’s...
View ArticleSeven big-hitter books for autumn 2022, from Maggie O’Farrell to Cormac McCarthy
It’s going to be a vintage autumn for fiction, with new novels from some of our finest writers. Here’s our essential guideRemind me…Born in Northern Ireland and now living in Edinburgh, O’Farrell...
View ArticleAct of Oblivion by Robert Harris review – a master writer leads us on a...
This rich and riotous novel, following the search for two of the men who signed Charles I’s death warrant, is also an important book for our own historical momentThere’s a passage in Vasily Grossman’s...
View ArticleAct of Oblivion by Robert Harris review – regicides on the run
In 1660, after the Restoration of the monarchy, two of Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers fled to America to escape execution. Harris is at his best in this fictionalisation of their escape and the quest to...
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