Written with Howard Jacobson’s customary originality, energy and wit, Shylock is My Name is the Man Booker Prize-winner’s profound and provocative re-telling of The Merchant of Venice in a contemporary setting. Howard Jacobson talks to the Guardian’s Alex Clark about his interpretation of Shylock’s story, asking what it means to be a father, a Jew and a merciful human being in the modern world. We are delighted that ...

Howard Jacobson writes with his customary thunder, passion and peerless wit in his latest collection of journalism, The Dog’s Last Work (and other Pieces). As eloquent in person as he is on the page, the incomparable Jacobson is in conversation with Alex Clark.

Viv Groskop in her luminous The Anna Karenina Fix, finds the answers to life’s burning questions in the great Russian novels. Not sure what to do with your love life? Turn to Tolstoy. Suffering from unrequited love? Turgenev can help. Are you socially awkward? Chekhov has the answers. Laura Freeman reveals how reading saved her life as she battled with anorexia, learning to embrace life once more through literature. Book by book and meal by meal, Laura acquired an entire library of reasons ...

These three towering Shakespeareans who have taught, written about, directed and performed the greatest dramatist of all times, engage in a witty and illuminating exchange about why the pre-eminent playwright and poet is studied, interpreted and translated the world over, providing inspiration for new operas, films, plays, novels, and other works of art.

Critically-acclaimed memoirist and author Alba Arikha joins poet and translator Yvonne Green in an exploration of how the literary voice represents the multiplicity of the Jewish experience. They tackle identity, nationhood, family and literary form in a wide-ranging discussion of the voices, people and ideas that are represented in their work.

Paul Essinger, a tennis professional in his 30s, is about to play his final US Open. The bookies give him 1,200-1 odds on winning the title. Anxiety-ridden, comically unaware and boiling with tension, each member of the Essinger family — Paul included — is painfully trying to unpick an idea of themselves from the tableau of upper-middle-class life they present. Reflecting on their German-Jewish ancestry, Essinger senior ruefully ascribes their good fortune to ‘immigrants’ luc...