“I saw Chocolat recently – she’s a single mum and she turns up and everyone’s a bit cross with her. And I thought, I recognise that, that mistrust… if only my mum had opened a chocolate shop!”
Nina Stibbe
ON FILM
Jonathan Tropper: How to end a marriage
Extract from the novel This Is Where I Leave You, now a riotously funny film about family ties and values – and a chance to win a copy of the book and a film goodie bag.
From page to screen
Mark Reynolds rounds up the best literary adaptations at the London Film Festival, including a new Madame Bovary and Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed in Wild (left).
INTERVIEWS
Nina Stibbe: Out of the box
The author of Love, Nina and Man at the Helm talks to Alex Peake-Tomkinson about her parents’ divorce, stationery, humour and therapy dogs.
FICTION 500
Paul Theroux: The cruise of the Allegra
Microstory from his new collection Mr Bones, in which a recent widower embraces a late life change on a Pacific liner.
CONTEXTS
Mika Provata-Carlone: Dangerous for ordinary people
An appreciation of Louisa Treger’s debut novel The Lodger, about neglected writer Dorothy Richardson and H.G. Wells.
Michelle Haimoff: In two words
The These Days Are Ours author tests a theory that your ideal partner can be summed up in two adjectives.
DIARY
Rob Doyle: After the euphoria, the finances
The author of Here Are the Young Men reflects on his journey from Bohemian trier to life above the breadline.
Mira Jacob: Smoke and mirrors
All is not as it seems on a glamour shoot for American Vogue.
PICTURE STORIES
Best of Enemies Vol 2: 1953–1984
Sample pages from Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B.’s graphic novel history of Middle East affairs from the Eisenhower Doctrine to the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut.
Mark Wallinger: Labyrinth
Stunning photographs of the Turner Prize-winner’s artworks that now feature in every station on the London Underground network.
Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination
A selection of illustrations, publications and artefacts from the new British Library exhibition celebrating 250 years of Gothic literature and culture.
TOP TENS
Chekhov’s mongoose and the elusive orange
Andrew Hunter Murray picks out some fascinating literary facts from the latest QI collection.
