According to the Romans, ‘bread and circuses’ were the key to keeping a population content. As long as their immediate physical…

How do you begin to tell stories about a war which claimed more than fifteen million lives? For children's author Michael Morpurgo, the…

Perhaps a society truly becomes lost when it doesn't know how lost it is. This is the eerie suggestion put forward by Never Let Me Go,…

In The Writing on the Wall, Maggi Dawn sets about doing what John Stott called "double listening" – "it means that we’re called…

Teachers lurk anxiously behind tinsel-covered curtains; excited children wait for their big moment; and nervous parents hope that their…

Mark Meynell is disoriented by the reality-probing of Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives. There are three deaths. The first is when…

Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel The Kite Runner, set in the author’s homeland Afghanistan, became a Hollywood blockbuster…

Jodi Picoult is not an author to shy away from controversial topics. Her novels cover issues such as rape, suicide pacts and genetically…

Reviews of some of Joanne Harris' novels, including Chocolat.