As the spywriter’s first novel turns 50, Emma Hogan gives away his secrets
Samantha Weinberg savours the recipes of a chef who is part pedant, part professor
A Portuguese novel of exuberance and desolation
Simon Willis unpicks a Nobel laureate’s lean and menacing prose style
A Dave Eggers tragicomedy, William Dalrymple conquering Afghanistan, and a short, sharp e-book
Fifty years ago Vasily Grossman, author of “Life and Fate”, spent two months in Armenia. Simon Willis finds it time well spent
The playwright who reinvented theatre, while rarely going to it
An early novel by Patrick White, pin-sharp stories from Alice Munro, and the best of 2012