The Dante Alighieri-inspired novel is already Amazon's top-selling book despite not being available until tomorrow

Education Secretary faces growing opposition to his reforms

The odd couple turn to crime-fighting

Where are you now and what can you see?

Research suggests more than a million over 50s will face shortfall when it comes to paying off their interest only mortgage

Former Tory MP Louise Mensch's fresh-faced appearance has been the subject of repeated speculation. Now she has finally laid the cosmetic surgery rumours to rest by admitting what many suspected all along: she has had a facelift.

Here's an unusual situation; an author who's certainly not dead, not unknown or out of print in his native USA, greatly admired, yet ignored and unrepresented on these shores. While UK publishers reprint the most minor Nordic crime novels, we're denied an astonishing American voice.

Chelsea captain in public rebuke of FA chairman during handover of trophy

Has there ever been a more grandiose title for a novel? In calling this book Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess seems to be suggesting that he has written a novel about everything. The extraordinary thing is that in these dense 648 pages, he has.

Actress Miranda Richardson, chair of this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, has hit out at the vitriol aimed at Hilary Mantel’s on-going awards success, calling it a “hideous” British trait.

As the world waits to see what the North Korean dictatorship does next, the judges of the Pulitzer prizes yesterday honoured a novel acclaimed for its depiction of the secretive state, naming Adam Johnson’s “The Orphan Master’s Son” as the winner of the fiction award after withholding the prize last year.

The future of women’s fiction looks bright as the once-a-decade list of best young British authors was dominated, for the first time in its 40-year history, by female authors.

The name's Bond...but it very nearly wasn't.