In 1996, BBC journalist Rory Cellan-Jones was clearing out his mother's council flat in Ruskin Park House, South London , following her death. He came across a kind of treasure trove. 'Everywhere,' he writes, 'there were bundles of letters - hundreds, possibly thousands of them.' His mother, Sylvia, had kept nearly every letter she had ever received and made carbon copies of many she had sent. In one rectangular red box, he found something special. A message to him from his mother: 'For Rory, to read and think about in the hope that it will help him to understand how it really was.' Also inside was a collection of love letters from the 1950s, exchanged between Sylvia and the father Rory did not even meet until he was 23. Pictured left, Rory's father Jim, and inset, his mother Sylvia. Right, Sylvia with Rory and his half-brother Stephen. ...read ...read
NEW FICTION
- MUST READS As a child, Willder was fascinated by words and grew up to be a blurb writer.
- LITERARY FICTION If Christopher Nolan's film Oppenheimer has left you mesmerised by the appalling miracles of nuclear physics, then The Maniac is the novel for you.
- PICTURE THIS This photographic anthology collates the prints acquired by the Pinault Collection for the Chronorama exhibition, currently on in Venice.
- THRILLERS First appearing as a shy character in King's Mr Mercedes in 2014, Holly Gibney has matured into one of his most memorable creations...
- SHORT STORIES It's difficult to pinpoint just how this author conjures up a welter of emotions in a scant few pages. Keegan's sentences are simple and largely unadorned...
- SCI-FI & FANTASY A detailed story of invasion, negotiation and diplomacy.
'I used to cook for Bono, now I make dinner for dogs': Ex-chef details how recovering from addiction led him to finding joy in feeding stray pups in new book
On a whim, Harbison moved to the island of Koh Samui in Thailand in 2018, taking his beloved rescue dog Snoop with him. When his girlfriend left him because of his drinking, he went into a downward spiral. After his stint in hospital, he realised that something had to change. 'I knew that whatever I did next, I had to do with all my heart and soul,' he said.
Rory Stewart’s time as an MP left him disillusioned with politics — especially Cameron — not to mention the Tory who told him... ‘Speak to me like that again and I’ll punch you on the nose’
there is an extraordinary episode when, on coming into the job, he discovers that some of our largesse is funding municipal councils in north-west Syria. 'Are not these enclaves controlled by jihadi factions?' Stewart asks, getting the response from a civil servant 'in her early 20s, "I think, Minister, that there are many different groups in these areas." "So we are not funding jihadis?" "No, Minister."'
RECENT SERIALISATIONS
Confessions of America's most prolific serial killer: When novelist Jillian Lauren asked twinkly-eyed Sam Little why he'd murdered 93 women he replied: 'It felt like being in love'
Sam Little didn't look like a serial killer at first glance - let alone like America's most prolific serial killer, guilty of 93 murders over three decades. A frail, charming, twinkly-eyed 78-year-old with a heart condition, diabetes and an amputated toe, he trundled into the visitors' room of California State Prison in his wheelchair. His first words to his new visitor Jillian Lauren were: 'You! You, my angel come to visit me from Heaven. God knew I was lonely and he sent me you.' Thus began the weirdest, creepiest two years any investigative journalist and novelist could expect in their working life.