David Cameron broke off from his trade visit to India in order to defend the Duchess of Cambridge over remarks by the author Hilary Mantel, who described her as a “machine-made” princess.

Hilary Mantel has delivered a withering assessment of Kate Middleton, dismissing the Duchess of Cambridge as a personality-free “shop window mannequin”, whose sole purpose is to deliver an heir to the throne.

A new James Bond novel, written by the award-winning author William Boyd, will be published in September. Bond creator Ian Fleming's estate confirmed the date of 26 September yesterday, but is keeping the title and plot of the spy's latest adventures a secret.

The double Booker Prize-winner compared princess Kate unfavourably to Anne Boleyn and said she had a 'plastic smile'

The double Booker Prize-winner compared princess Kate unfavourably to Anne Boleyn and said she had "dead eyes" and a "plastic smile"

Shropshire Lad poet A.E. Housman gave strict instructions upon his death that working drafts and unpublished poems should be destroyed. But a rare handwritten poem that was saved from destruction is set to go under the hammer and is expected to fetch up to £25,000.

One of the writers behind cult comedy Beavis and Butt-Head has been shortlisted for a prestigious children's book prize.

The writer of the bestselling Horrible Histories series has proclaimed that libraries are “no longer relevant” and “they have to change or they have to go”.

As if the pages of Italian glossy magazines and the bargain buckets of Waterstones were not enough, the Middleton family may yet make another foray into the literary world.

Her production rate may be arthritically slow, but the news will delight her fans. The cultish American novelist Donna Tartt will publish another book in October – her third, after the international bestseller The Secret History (1992) and its follow-up, The Little Friend (2002).

The Goldfinch: A Novel is the story of a young orphan in New York

The most-borrowed book in the House of Commons library is How To Be An MP, by the veteran Labour parliamentarian Paul Flynn.

Head of political party offers £8,000 for author's body part over controversial novel

England midfielder has agreed a deal with a publisher to write children's books

Truman Capote is no longer around to care, but newly unearthed evidence in the case of the Kansas farmhouse murders that became his blockbuster book In Cold Blood casts fresh doubt on his famous claim that it was “immaculately factual” from front cover to back.