Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
Alison Flood

Creator

Alison Flood

Guest Author

No magic bullet to help you read super-fast and grasp it all

From speed-reading courses and apps, we zoom in on techniques that claim to increase reading speed.

Children’s comprehension and vocabulary improves when parents read to them.

Parents worried about use of interactive e-books

The majority of British parents who responded to a new survey voiced concerns over the negative impact of interactive e-books on their children.

Walatta Petros’ hair is shaved to prepare her for becoming a nun

Life of an African woman saint is a revelation

Ethiopian noblewoman Walatta Petros fought to stop the spread of Roman Catholicism, possibly fell in love with a nun and was elevated to sainthood

Japanese bookshop stocks only one book at a time

Owner of Morioka Shoten in Tokyo says the strategy adds up to a dedicated exhibition for each volume it sells.

Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie: I want to live in a world where men and women are truly equal. And that’s why I’m a feminist.”

Feminist essay a must-read for 16-year-old Swedes

Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s essay is now being distributed in Swedish to high-school pupils.

The community responded to the death by looting the shop and assaulting the owners. (Thulani Mbele/Timeslive)

Outrage as school pulls ‘vulgar’ novel

Campaigners say move to pull award-winning writer Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close raises constitutional concerns.

The Map of Middle-earth with annotations by JRR Tolkien was found in a copy of The Lord of the Rings that belonged to illustrator Pauline Baynes.

Tolkien’s precision revealed in a map

Correspondence between Tolkien and the late and acclaimed illustrator gives further details about the sometimes thorny relationship between the two.

Historian of emotions wins the Nobel

Belarussian Svetlana Alexievich has won the Nobel prize for literature for her thousands of oral histories that map the implosion of the Soviet Union.

Dams would need to reach 65% by the end of the rainy season at the start of October before the city’s water storage capacity moves out of the danger zone. (David Harrison/M&G)

Blue books for him, pink for her

A leading author has railed against gender specific literature for children and adults, calling it brainwashing.

Author Stephen King

Stephen King to receive National Medal of Arts from Barack Obama

The United States president will present the novelist with the highest award for artists given by the US government.

The cast of the film The Great Gatsby.

Great Scott! Another Fitzgerald story

A 8 000-word story by F Scott Fitzgerald has been discovered in the archives of Princeton University.

Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman manuscript was discovered in the autumn of 2014.

Harper Lee’s Watchman – a novel hiding in plain sight

Harper Lee’s lawyer, Tonja Carter, says there may be a third novel by Lee.

To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee’s latest novel Go Set a Watchman hit the bookshops around the world on July 14.
Audio

Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman is finally here

As its Tuesday launch creates frenzy in the literary world, the novel’s first chapter reveals a voice recognisable to that of To Kill a Mockingbird.

‘Municipalities should also provide administrative and other support, including for the training of ward committee members,’ writes Paul Kariuki. (Paul Botes/M&G)

Fifty Shades of Grey sequel breaks sales records

More than 1m readers in the US alone have already bought Grey, which retells EL James’s hit story from the hero’s point of view.

Emancipation, not emasculation

Matt Haig wanted to explore new ideas about masculinity, but found outrage and ire instead.

Game of ideological thrones

George RR Martin believes right-wing science ­fiction writers have wrecked the Hugo Awards.

Praise for ?‘great intellectual’ who defied convention

A tribute to the acclaimed Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, who explored the lives of Muslim women in her fiction for more than 50 years.

To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee’s latest novel Go Set a Watchman hit the bookshops around the world on July 14.

‘Go Set A Watchman’ is Harper Lee’s first novel in more than 50 years

Completed in the mid-50s but lost for more than 50 years, the novel was written before ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ and features Scout as an adult.

Alan Turing notes to fetch a million pounds

British auctioneer Bonhams is to sell the 56-page manuscript of the code-breaker’s work cracking the Enigma code in 1942.

The protests that have taken place in the United States confront the racialised edifice that built the modern world

#blacklivesmatter voted 2014’s word of the year in US

Twitter protest hashtag is overwhelming victor in American Dialect Society’s annual poll of language experts.