From Dolores O’Riordan and Myrtle Allen to Stephen Hawking and Aretha Franklin

From Hunter S Thompson to Philip Roth, Shirley Jackson and John Connolly, great writing has a way of making readers feel less isolated in a world of anxiety and upheaval

Colm Tóibín pays tribute to great author who was a ferocious critic of Donald Trump but a close friend of Edna O’Brien

Prolific author of works such as Portnoy’s Complaint and The Human Stain won almost every major literary prize

The great American writer on Trump, the #MeToo movement and living the retirement life

When nuclear war loomed in the 1960s, Cork was deemed the safest place to be

Politics: There are actually a number of dark futures to which our system can succumb

Sadly this Colm Tóibín-assisted effort has none of the warmth of his best work

Nina Raine should know. Her father, a critic, once told her: `Your business is not to be worrying about people’s feelings. Because otherwise you will never write'

The bestselling writer on autobiography, being part of a literary power couple with Jonathan Safran Foer, and what happens when it all falls apart

His works have been adapted by Rob Reiner, Brian De Palma, Stanley Kubrick and David Cronenberg. And we’re soon to see more adaptations on screen

Michael Inside, Maze and Song of Granite are among the strong field of new Irish film

Joyce, Binchy and O’Brien show ‘a link between lapsed Catholics and philo-semitism’

Chris Johns: The UK needs a cross-party coalition to negotiate a softer, slower Brexit

‘Dummy’, ‘idiots’, ‘morons’: basic words, but the way the president uses them resonates

Scottish poet’s foray into post-second World War US history is disappointingly contrived

Barack Obama talks to New York Times chief book critic about role of literature and writing in his life, from helping him work out his own identity to connecting with people

Not since Lincoln has there been a president so fundamentally shaped by reading and writing as Barack Obama

There is still another America, an America that will wake up feeling it has lost its country

Arrogance and self-belief remain with the Texan as thousands flock to hear him speak

If the academy wanted to honour a music icon, Paul Simon would be a better choice

UK Politics: Sentimentality keeps Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents in a fight they can’t win

A selection of writers pick the books that best make sense of the US election, and the ones that predicted the rise of a Trump-style candidate

The writer has called time on the NPR live radio variety show A Prairie Home Companion, which has been running since 1974

Pedro Almodóvar quoted Philip Roth while promoting his latest work, made in his typical primary colours

Gathering in Dublin includes Paddy Moloney, Michael Longley and Olivia O’Leary

British-born Collins dies of breast cancer at her Los Angeles home on Saturday

If winning tournaments is no longer humanly possible for him, well, what then?

Writer the guest of honour at Nobel dinner, at start of Yeats festival in Sligo to mark 150 years since his birth

Brought to Book Q&A: Irish author and academic on how he writes and what he reads

Ireland is happy to enjoy the cultural kudos – and tourism revenue – its once-shunned literary lions bestow on the country but the State is careless when it comes to preserving their homes

Joël Dicker’s bestseller is thriller escapism writ large, irrepressibly exuberant storytelling that tramples realism underfoot as it rattles along at a thunderous pace

Review: Joshua Ferris’s third novel glides from comedy to tragedy without once losing the plot

Ivan Klíma was clearly a dissident. But then the Czech writer was too cautious to sign Charter 77, and now he is oddly accepting of Václav Havel

Paperback review

Is civil society the best kind for humanity – or could we do better?

The American writer’s psychotherapist son has written a perceptive, honest – and angry – book about life with a literary giant