It comes around faster each year... Time to hmu with your novels of 2026 for the Observer New Review look-ahead. No debuts (done in the best debut fiction feature on the planet) stone cold bangers only pls. Nove(l)mber reading marathon here we go.

I am so looking forward to this. The book is extraordinary and he’s obviously a ledge. www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/seb...

Excited to reveal the cover for A Stranger in Corfu - a spy novel with a difference!

Following former MI6 agents, who are living in enforced retirement in Corfu when their pasts come back to haunt them, it’s a vivid reimagining of a true slice of British Intelligence history, told with huge skill.

So thrilled that @canongate.co.uk will be publishing A Stranger in Corfu in February. A retirement home for spies, secrets that rise up from the past, the beauty of Greece. @waterstones.bsky.social are offering a big preorder discount on the hardback here: buythebook.online/astrangerinc...

This is very exciting. Michael has done a wonderful job of pulling together the memoirs and letters of my great-great-great grandfather. Massive ledge, obvs.

Loved the courage-giving expansiveness of Lifelines by @julianhoffman.bsky.social - here’s my review in The Observer. observer.co.uk/culture/book...

This by @alexpreston.bsky.social on the great Raja Shehadeh is good.

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

Reading @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social on the life and beauty of rivers while sailing towards Aswan on the Nile.

This was a fascinating book. Full of deep research and righteous anger…

Just loved Ben Markovits’s latest. A peculiar, ultimately uplifting midlife Odyssey. Massive recommendation. Here are my thoughts in the Observer. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...

Are you sure you don't mean Scandinavian Airlines, @theguardian.com ?

Lofoten is pretty close to heaven. Love it so much here.

First Bluesky post - green sky! In Lofoten, Norway.