Happy International Day of Happiness! The British Council recommends some books that will make you smile.

Vogue UK has some ideas about what a modern day Belle would read.

Meet the young black women breaking into Britain’s very white publishing industry.

Book Riot rounds some of the best life advice from Victoria novels.

Lit Hub has some encouraging words for aspiring authors: even Shakespeare’s first drafts, it turns out, were pretty rough.

And in further proof that authors are just like the rest of us, Wyl Menmuir shares the usefulness of an app in completing his Booker-longlisted novel.

In celebration of the third book in the Crongton trilogy, teenagers are invited to enter a competition to win a visit by superstar author Alex Wheatle to their school.

Reviews

The Guardian reviews Arthur and Sherlock, Michael Sims’ new book about Conan Doyle’s real and fictional inspiration for his hero, as well as Baileys longlisted First Love by Gwendoline Riley, Helen Dunmore’s literary thriller Birdcage Walk, and the newly published book by Adrian Addison, Mail Men: The Unauthorized Story of the Daily Mail - The Paper That Divided and Conquered Britain. In the Observer, Robert McCrum reflects on the work of Anthony Burgess, who would have been 100 this year.

Podcasts

This fortnight’s installment of the Backlisted podcast focusses on James Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime.

Last Friday’s Women’s Hour has plenty of bookish content: an interview of Baileys-longlisted Nigerian writer Ayobami Adego, a discussion of The Paula Principle, a new book which claims that women aren’t getting the career success that their academic achievements would suggest they deserve, an interview with Angela De Angelis, who has adapted Elena Ferrante’s novels for the stage, and a wedding-themed discussion with Lisa Johnson and novelist Wendy Holden.