The Independent

The Blagger's Guide To...The Woman In Black

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

So scary, Ruth Rendell had to sleep with the light on

Hannah: 'I think all kinds of hideous things in my head, but in a social situation I'm a smoother-over'

Sophie Hannah: 'I want you to question my motives...'

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

The crime writer Sophie Hannah likes to dream up unique and provocative reasons to commit murder

Between The Covers: 'Hatchet Job of the Year Award' and the London Super Comic Convention

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

The inaugural "Hatchet Job of the Year Award" was won by Adam Mars-Jones last Tuesday evening at a packed ceremony at the Coach & Horses in Greek Street, Soho, famous as the former home of Norman Balon, "the rudest landlord in London".

Invisible Ink: No 110 - Peter Dickinson

12 February 2012 12:00 AM

Are books dumbing down? Peter Dickinson's work hasn't.

Five-minute memoir: Noo Sara-Wiwa recalls a post-Apartheid motorcycle ride

11 February 2012 12:00 AM

Spring time in the still fledgling New South Africa. I was in a white Mercedes, feeling cool though looking a bit of a fool in my borrowed Harley-Davidson jacket, vest and Harley bandana. I was accompanying Paul and Manny, two members of the Soweto-based Eagles, the country's only black biker gang at the time. I had contacted the Eagles after reading about them in the local newspaper, and asked if I could join them one weekend. We were en route to a biker rally in a town called Villiers, a small Afrikaner bastion of the Free State province.

Jane Austen is back in the frame

10 February 2012 12:00 AM

When academic and biographer Paula Byrne announced the discovery of what seemed to be a new drawing of Jane Austen, there was a frenzied debate over the picture's authenticity. Arguments are bound to be reignited by the news that the controversial portrait will go on display at the Bodleian Library in Oxford as part of the celebrations for World Book Day, before moving to Jane Austen's House Museum in Chawton this April. The picture, showing a thin-faced woman gripping an inky quill, accentuates Austen's professionalism.

Eowyn Ivey at her home near Chickaloon, Alaska

One Minute With: Eowyn Ivey, novelist

10 February 2012 12:00 AM

Where are you now and what can you see?

Boyd Tonkin: Closing libraries? Now that's crazy

10 February 2012 12:00 AM

The week in books

Made a name for herself: Brooke Magnanti, aka Belle
de Jour

Altar of Bones: A literary sensation – but who dunnit?

08 February 2012 12:00 AM

As the books world mulls over the real identity of an acclaimed new author, Arifa Akbar wonders what drives writers to hide behind a nom de plume

Forever young: The film version of Louise Rennison's book 'Angus, Thongs and Even More Snogging'

Louise Rennison: The teen queen who never grew up

07 February 2012 12:00 AM

Author Louise Rennison's unique insight into young girls' lives comes not from parenting but from vivid memories of her own turbulent youth

Invisible Ink: No 109 - Sven Hassel

05 February 2012 12:00 AM

When I was a child, my father guiltily read Sven Hassel's paperbacks, keeping them in his bedside table where the children wouldn't find them. Gruesomely illustrated with photographs of concentration camp inmates and tanks rolling over corpses, they seemed to represent the populist voice of war experience, but a question mark remains over Hassel's real identity.