Read an extract from Helen Oyeyemi’s short story ‘if a book is locked there’s probably a good reason for that, don’t you think?’, which has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2017. You can read extracts from all the other nominees on our blog.

Every time ...

We’re looking forward to welcoming Claire Messud to the Bookshop on Thursday 21 September to discuss her new novel The Burning Girl with Alex Clark. First hailed in the pages of the LRB as ‘a deeply interesting young writer’ by Penelope Fitzgerald, Messud has, says the New York Times, ...

Read an extract from Cynan Jones’s short story ‘The Edge of the Shoal’, which has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2017. You can read extracts from all the other nominees on our blog.

[ Shoal /ʃəʊl/ - noun 1: a large number of fish swimming together. 2: a ...