Andrew Dickson

Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru (Scribner) The final instalment in Kunzru’s informal three-colours trilogy, following 2017’s White Tears and 2020’s Red Pill, Blue Ruin explores the lives of two YBA-period artists abruptly and shockingly reunited during Covid (one’s become a bigshot; the other is now living out of his car). Expertly plotted and evocatively painted, the novel portrays the grime of late-90s east London with relish; it’s also a thoughtful exploration of the corrosive influence of money on…

In a gallery inside the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Jeff Wall reaches behind a vast lightbox and flips a switch. As it flickers into life, a street scene appears: four monumental figures striding across an expanse of concrete sidewalk, beneath storm clouds, menacing and turquoise-blue. The people are dragging bags; hurrying, perhaps. Away from the apocalypse? To catch a bus? The photograph is as enigmatic as anything Wall has made. On a dingy Swiss January morning, rain slithering down the glass…

A “meticulously researched, thrillingly told” account of a devastating wildfire in Canada has won this year’s Baillie Gifford prize, the UK’s leading award for non-fiction. Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by the US-Canadian author John Vaillant was announced as the winner of the £50,000 prize at a ceremony at the Science Museum in London on Thursday. Published this year, the book chronicles an apocalyptic fire that began in forests close to Fort McMurray in the northern province…

A dystopian vision of Dublin riven by civil war, a meditation on trauma and survival set in an unnamed rural community and a formally dazzling study of racial identity in America are among the six novels shortlisted for this year’s Booker prize, which judges hailed on Thursday as “vibrant and electric”. Those three titles — Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein and If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery — will vie with three others for the most prestigious award in…

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

An Ivors award for Fox’s stark modernist compositions reflects a lifetime of creativity on the cutting edge of music

Music, visuals and computer code are being blended to create an entrancing experience