Lisa Allardice

London

Chief Books Writer at The Guardian

Guardian Chief Books Writer.

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Articles

Women’s prize winner Yael van der Wouden: ‘It’s heartbreaking to see so much hatred towards queer people’

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Lisa Allardice

It has been a dramatic couple of years for 37-year-old Dutch author Yael van der Wouden: her first novel, The Safekeep, a love story that deals with the legacy of the Holocaust in the Netherlands, was the focus of a frenzied bidding war and shortlisted for the 2024 Booker prize. Last night it won the Women’s prize for fiction. “I wrote this book from a place of hopelessness,” she says when we meet. “I was looking for a ray of sunshine.” This morning in London the sun is blazing.
Bernardine Evaristo on success, controversy and why she plans to donate her £100k award

2 weeks ago | msn.com | Lisa Allardice

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
‘I’m here to open doors’: Bernardine Evaristo on success, controversy and why she plans to donate her £100k award

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Lisa Allardice

Back in 2013, Bernardine Evaristo gave a reading in a south London bookshop from her novel Mr Loverman. Only six people showed up, a couple of them were dozing and she realised they were homeless people who had come to find somewhere comfortable to sleep.
Margaret Atwood’s 10 best books – ranked!

1 month ago | msn.com | Lisa Allardice

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
Margaret Atwood’s 10 best books - ranked!

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Lisa Allardice

10 The Testaments (2019)After more than 30 years, Atwood caved to pleas to write a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. Not since Harry Potter had a publication caused such a sensation: computers were hacked in search of the manuscript and advance copies were kept under lock and key. With classic Atwood timing, the novel coincided with the phenomenal success of the TV adaptation of the original – not to mention the arrival of Trump at the White House.
Writer Saba Sams: ‘I wanted it to be sexy and really messy’

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Lisa Allardice

Saba Sams was in bed breastfeeding her two-month-old baby Sonny when she received an email saying that the publisher Bloomsbury wanted to offer her a book deal on the basis of some of her short stories. She was just 22 at the time. “I didn’t even think it was a book,” she says when we meet. “I was just learning how to write.”Send Nudes, her first collection, about being a young woman in a messed-up world, was published in 2022.
Japanese author Sayaka Murata

2 months ago | msn.com | Lisa Allardice

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
‘Marriage feels like a hostage situation, and motherhood a curse’: Japanese author Sayaka Murata

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Lisa Allardice

“I have had relationships with humans, but I’ve also loved a lot of people in stories,” Sayaka Murata, the Japanese author of the bestseller Convenience Store Woman, confides a few minutes into our interview. “I’ve been told by my doctor not to talk about this too much, but ever since I was a child, I’ve had 30 or 40 imaginary friends who live on a different star or planet with whom I have shared love and sexual experiences.”It is 7pm in Tokyo, mid-morning in London.
If you only read one book this year … make it this one!

Mar 6, 2025 | msn.com | Lisa Allardice |William Boyd |Abir Mukherjee |Sara Collins |Ben Johns |Justine Jordan | +4 more

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
If you only read one book this year … make it this one!

Mar 6, 2025 | theguardian.com | Lisa Allardice |William Boyd |Sara Collins |Justine Jordan |Nikesh Shukla |Jeffrey Boakye

According to new data from YouGov, 40% of British adults have not read a single book in the last year, with the median Briton having read or listened to three. In a world where there are so many other distractions and forms of entertainment to choose from, fewer and fewer people are getting stuck into books – yet lots of us would like to be reading more. So we asked authors, booksellers and critics to choose the book they think you should read this year – even if you only read one.