The Independent on the rediscovery of the brilliant Eve Babitz, author of Sex & Rage:

“She’s a comic, a poet, and a rare writer who is capable of finding the universal in the unique.”

Matt Haig was interviewed in the Observer about his new book Notes on a Nervous Planet.

“Platforms like Twitter and Instagram try to get us as emotionally and psychologically invested in them as possible. And sometimes, if you just go on Twitter and passively scroll down your feed, it depends who you follow of course, it just seems like a fireball of anger. Wherever you are on the political spectrum, you can find something within five minutes to be really, really cross or anxious about. And there’s a psychological fall-out from all that.”

“This wonderful new book is the most comprehensive overview of the filmmaker’s life and career to date.”

“Everybody has theories about what the show is about, which is great, and it wouldn’t matter if I explained my theory. Things have harmonics, and if you’re true to an idea as much as you can be, then the harmonics will be there and they’ll be truthful even though they may be abstract.” David Lynch in the New York Times on his new book, Room to Dream.

“It’s not often that an author described on his own Wikipedia page as ‘disgracefully neglected’ is awarded a €100,000 literary prize. But this is where the Irish author Mike McCormack finds himself, with Wednesday’s announcement that he has won the International Dublin literary award for his novel, Solar Bones. As someone who has hovered close to mainstream success without ever shaking off the slightly damning label of ‘writer’s writer’, he is unsurprisingly delighted.”

‘An immense and moving jazz riff… The acutely immersive world of American Histories is irresistible, and these profoundly moving stories will haunt you long after you’ve finished reading.’

Watch Robert Webb read from his bestselling memoir How Not to be a Boy at the Hay Festival: ‘I thought only wimps needed manners, and only tough guys were brave.’

“Wideman is a writer who excels at dramatising African American sensibilities and this collection typically addresses issues of race, injustice and inequality with power and potency. Crystallised moments of experience carry entire worlds in stories … from the whimsical to the political. This is published alongside Wideman’s earlier novels and is a gem for anyone yet to discover his work.”

“Laidlaw brought Glasgow to life more viscerally than any book I had read before: the good and the bad, the language and the humour, the violence and the drinking … This book made me realise that pacey, streetwise thrillers didn’t have to be American: we had mean streets enough of our own.”

The Guardian asked great crime writers to pick their favourite crime novels, and Christopher Brookmyre thinks you should be reading William McIlvanney’s Laidlaw.