Fiction

According to 2017 estimates released this summer by the Association of American PublishersThe national trade association of the American book publishing industry; AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies, sales of adult fiction fell 16% between 2013 and 2017, from $5.21 billion to $4.38 billion. The numbers, though not a major worry, raise questions about the books the industry is publishing and what consumers want to read.

Imagine you're in an airport boarding lounge, or the waiting room at virtually any train station or bus terminal in the Western world. Maybe you commute to work or school by subway. It doesn't matter. Look around. Somewhere in there, among hundreds of fellow travelers, lurks the shade of a tall, lanky man in a Red Sox gimme cap.  Read more

Last week, Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine was longlisted for the Women's prize for fiction. The debut author, who has gone from writing competition to publishing bidding war to the Costa first novel prize, joins Joanna Cannon, with her second novel Three Things About Elsie.  Read more

Will Self is the author of 10 novels, five collections of short stories and several works of nonfiction, including The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Dorian and Walking to Hollywood. Phone is the final instalment of the trilogy that began with Umbrella and Shark and is out now in paperback (Viking, £8.99).

Although you might expect to see "short story" in a sentence topped and tailed with "is the" and "dead?", in the past few days a New Yorker short story written by the previously unknown Kristen Roupenian has gone viral.  Read more