Donald Clarke: The B&B paperback is dead

Up to the 1980s, every Irish B&B had bookshelves stuffed with books left by guests

Ken Early: Thierry Henry, a missed flight, and the invisible hand of history

How I ended up missing out on the collective outrage about France’s infamous handball

‘I can’t do thrillers or spy novels or genre fiction. I just get bored'

The author Colm Tóibín discusses female Irish novelists, families, and when he wishes he had a TV

Neck trouble, philosophy and defiance: A literary guide to middle age

Our middle years have had a makeover thanks to some excellent recent literature

Pubic transport – An Irishman’s Diary on the dangers of taxi ranks

I Am Not Madame Bovary: Gorgeous, stylised example of Chinese box-office gold

Director Feng Xiaogang is a master of observational comedy in his native land, and his humour travels with some success

Bad romance: we know it will end badly but it does not stop us

You’ve met a kind, loving person but you don’t want them, you want the broody narcissist: why?

Jonathan Bardon Q&A: ‘good history is not enough: the historian also has a duty to tell it well’

‘Read your first drafts out loud to yourself, as if you were giving a sermon – a great way to show up areas in need of improvement’

Brought to Book: Anakana Schofield on parallel reading, the literary patriarchy and books as portals

‘I write in a very troubling manner that I wouldn’t advise anyone to adopt’

Eat your words

With the Ballymaloe Literary Festival taking place this weekend, here are 20 literary quotations to whet the appetite