Courttia Newland discusses astral projection, rejection, racism, Small Axe and his new novel, A River Called Time with the Guardian

‘When I was growing up I used to have these episodes where you wake up and feel like you can’t breathe, you can’t see, you’re almost having a seizure, a dreaming seizure. I’d fight it and try to wake up – but this one time, around 1997, I didn’t fight it and I had an out of body experience, like I actually rose from my body. I could see somebody in the room sitting next to the bed. The experience stuck in my head and I thought, “Let me find out what’s been happening.” I found all these books saying it was astral projection. And that was it. I knew I wanted to write about astral projection.’

“This fascinating, entertaining and lucidly written book should be read by anyone ready to confess that rest is not their forte. We start to see that the subject is complicated partly because most of us are no good at resting. We are restless about rest. We feel guilty about it. We live in a culture obsessed with being busy – and this boasting about being busy is, Hammond argues, caught up with status.”

The Guardian review Claudia Hammond’s The Art of Rest.

Gavin Francis, the author of the beautiful Island Dreams, writes in the Guardian about the fascination that islands exert.

“The love of islands is a widespread affliction – why else are we still reading Robinson Crusoe after 300 years? Why Treasure Island? Why after 75 years and over 2,000 episodes are we still listening to Desert Island Discs? From the blessed isles of Tír na nÓg and Thomas More’s Utopia to the island-dramas of CS Lewis and Enid Blyton, it seems we can’t get enough of them.”

Michael Spicer, author of The Secret Political Adviser, talks to the Guardian about becoming a sudden comedy star, and satire in an age without subtlety.

“Spicer represents the new vanguard of comedians satirising the political quagmire we’ve become embroiled in since the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump. We are living in the age of political gaffes: there are so many of them, and they come so thick and fast, that what would once have led the news agenda for 24 hours gets forgotten in minutes.”