Chief executive James Daunt, who has guided the retailer back to profit and will remain in post, hails the deal as testament to ‘old-fashioned bookselling’ Britain’s largest book chain, Waterstones, has been acquired for an undisclosed sum by the private investment firm Elliott Advisors. James Daunt,

Featuring the organisation NXIVM, an alleged sex cult

This stylish debut following two brothers through a version of London in the grip of a sinister regime is a distinctly post-Brexit novel A few years ago, marking essays for a class I taught on the city in literature, I was struck by the fact that most students wrote their final papers on post-apocalyptic cityscapes. I took to Facebook to vent my surprise: “What is going on with the youth?” I asked. A friend replied: “Dystopia

Carol Ann Duffy, Jeanette Winterson and Jackie Kay also set to celebrate Brontë sisters’ legacy Kate Bush is to make her second tribute to Emily Brontë, providing words for a permanent art installation on the

The celebrity chef and food campaigner is taking on obesity by doorstepping cereal giants and flogging cabbages in Newcastle – and it seems to be having an effect If you are in the food industry, the last thing you want popping into your inbox is an email from

The longtime guitarist's separation from the band came down to a 'scheduling conflict'

In The Prudes, the playwright satirises men’s response to the current political moment. He explains how it was created from scratch in rehearsals First day of rehearsals. Really happy to be back at the Royal Court, where I’ve had productions under each of the last four regimes. Despite the Court’s standing, it’s still small enough that you interact with all the departments on a daily basis. It is the theatre whose mission statement most resembles my own, and one of the few that will let me work the way I prefer. For good or ill, without the Court I wouldn’t exist as the artist I am.

Actor says she found it 'very painful' not being included after previously being 'ostracised' for speaking out about allegedly sexual abuse

Echo awards axed amid backlash over prize-winning rappers who compared themselves to Auschwitz prisoners Germany’s biggest music prize is being abolished after one of this year’s awards was given to a rap album allegedly containing antisemitic lyrics. “The Echo brand is so badly damaged that a complete new beginning is necessary,” the Federal Music Industry Association (BVMI) said on Wednesday afternoon.

His award-winning debut film is based around the Ukwaluka, an initiation ceremony practiced by the Xhosa people of South Africa

The first Harry Potter game in years is out today on Android and iPhone. Here’s what to expect I won’t lie: on my 11th birthday, a tiny part of me hoped that I might get a letter from Hogwarts. By that age I had long accepted that my toys would not spring to life, I would not find a snowy fantasy realm in the back of a closet, and I was not a secret warrior princess – but the existence of a secret school in the Highlands of Scotland still seemed just possible. Edinburgh’s Fettes College was down the road from where I grew up; I imagined Hogwarts would be much the same, but for wizards instead of extremely posh children. The first Harry Potter game in more than five years, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, attempts to fulfil that childhood fantasy. Released today for Android and iPhone, it is a gentle narrative game that offers a pared-down Hogwarts experience, letting you pick your house, form friendships and rivalries and master spells in the famous castle. I was really hoping it would be good. On first impressions, it’s not the lazy cash-in I’d feared.

The sitcom character was up to his old foul-mouthed tricks again

US actress Rose McGowan tells the Victoria Derbyshire show Harvey Weinstein has tried to contact her.

Almeida, London

'As a good company man, they've indoctrinated me to the point where I was like Manchurian Candidate'

The best-selling author of 'The Circle' on why he's turned to magical-realism for kids to explain our current place in the world

The Second War of the Dog wins Palestinian author $50,000 and an English translation of the book he calls ‘a warning of what we could become in the future’ Ibrahim Nasrallah has won the International prize for Arabic fiction with The Second War of the Dog, a novel hailed by the judges as “a masterful vision of a dystopian future in a nameless country”. Along with the $50,000 cheque – one of the richest prizes in fiction – Nasrallah has also been awarded funds for an English translation of the novel. Announcing the winner, chair of judges Ibrahim Al Saafin praised The Second War of the Dog for its use of techniques drawn from fantasy and science fiction. “It exposes the tendency towards brutality inherent in society,” he said, “imagining a time where human and moral values have been discarded and anything is permissible, even the buying and selling of human souls.”

Public housing in the UK improved the lives of millions, but has left little trace in literature. John Boughton unlocks the door to the unsung history of council homes Well over a third of Britons lived in council homes at their peak in the early 1980s, and yet the subject of public housing is hardly to be found on bookshelves. There is some good academic writing, and there are some decent local histories – though traditional works are more likely to be taken by a surviving Georgian townhouse than a neo-Georgian council estate – but you’ll struggle to find anything in the mainstream. And in literary fiction, authentic interest in or real knowledge of the lives of the millions who have lived in council homes over the years is almost nonexistent. Journalism has filled the gap – once celebratory, but latterly often demonising and sensationalist as one-time municipal dreams were designated nightmares. Awareness has only revived more recently, as the renewed failure of the free market to provide the decent, affordable homes we need has become more stark, and – more darkly – in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire.