Le réalisateur de Deadpool fait appel à John Wick pour son prochain film. De la SF complètement barré, c'est un projet à surveiller de près...

A quarter century after that landmark cult novel, this new epic has aspects of brilliance but seems designed for academic study rather than readerly enjoyment

In this moment of cultural panic about the decline of reading, it takes an enviable confidence to deliver a volume such as Tom’s Crossing. Weighing in at more than 1,200 pages of closely printed text, the novel contains, I would hazard, about half a million words – roughly two Ulysses. It’s also, for that matter, about twice the length of Danielewski’s debut, House of Leaves, which secured cult status for its author on publication 25 years ago. Tom’s Crossing is so big that when I got it out on the tube, I felt like that character on Trigger Happy TV with his enormous mobile phone. “Look,” I seemed to be telling the passengers scrolling Instagram on their devices, “I’m reading a book!”

The novel is not merely long, it’s also a challenging, deliberately arcane work that insists on its own epic status, yet has at its heart a straightforward and compelling story. Kalin March, a 16-year-old nerdy outsider in the town of Orvop in Utah, is a preternaturally talented horse rider. Through a shared love of horses, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with handsome and popular Tom Gatestone.

“Earlier that afternoon, when for some reason Allison’s thoughts had angrily returned to the curse she’d laid upon Kalin before he’d left, warnin him from guns, makin it clear by insubstantial decree that even handlin a gun might cost him the horses he loved, and for the rest of his life, she and Sondra had returned to the Isatch Canyon parkin lot, where they’d promptly learned about the great rockfall.”

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© Photograph: Karl Hendon/Getty Images

© Photograph: Karl Hendon/Getty Images

© Photograph: Karl Hendon/Getty Images

Halloween weekend failed to make numbers jump, adding up to the weakest monthly performance – other than during the pandemic – for three decades

Box office earnings in October have crashed to levels not seen since the late 1990s, with Halloween weekend becoming the worst of the year so far.

According to a report in Variety, cinema takings for October in North America totalled $425m (£323m), the lowest figure since October 1997, when it was $385m – not counting October 2020, when North American cinemas only took $63m as moviegoing was severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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© Photograph: Robin Cymbaly/Universal Pictures

© Photograph: Robin Cymbaly/Universal Pictures

© Photograph: Robin Cymbaly/Universal Pictures

The once-great author revisits St Cloud’s orphanage all too briefly, in a novel that begins with an adopted girl but wanders all over the place

If some writers have an imperial phase, where they hit the heights time after time, then American novelist John Irving’s ran through a series of four fat, satisfying novels, from his 1978 breakthrough The World According to Garp to 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. Those were generous, funny, big-hearted books, tying characters he calls “outliers” to social issues from feminism to abortion.

Since Owen Meany, it’s been diminishing returns, except in page length. His last novel, 2022’s The Last Chairlift, was 900 pages of subjects Irving had explored better in earlier books (mutism, dwarfism, transgenderism), with a 200-page screenplay in the middle to pad it out – as if padding were needed.

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© Photograph: Christopher Wahl

© Photograph: Christopher Wahl

© Photograph: Christopher Wahl

Why did an obscure Dostoevsky novella sell 100,000 copies in the UK last year? And why are TikTokers raving about a 1943 Turkish novel? The way young people are discovering books is changing – and their literary tastes reflect our times

The sales patterns for classic novels are normally a fairly predictable business. “Every year it’s the same authors,” says Jessica Harrison, publishing director for Penguin Classics UK. “Austen is always at the very top, and then all the school ones: Orwell, An Inspector Calls, Of Mice and Men, Jane Eyre.”

But last year it was different. Penguin’s bestselling classic by far was a little-known novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky. White Nights sold more than 100,000 copies in the UK in 2024. It is an angsty story of impossible love, run through with characteristic Dostoevskian gloom. A young man and woman meet on a bridge in St Petersburg on consecutive nights: his love for her is unrequited; she is despairing because the man she really loves has ghosted her. The pleasure the young man takes in her company is shadowed by the knowledge that it can never be permanent.

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© Composite: PR

© Composite: PR

© Composite: PR

Mais qui est donc Buck Rogers, ce héros de science-fiction sans qui Star Wars ou Star Trek n'auraient pas été les mêmes ?

Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

Erik Satie Three Piece Suite by Ian Penman is a daring and endlessly inventive portrait of the iconoclastic composer. Penman’s skill lies in his total disregard for tired cliches and tropes of music criticism, while perfectly combining the highbrow and the lowbrow – a digression on Les Dawson shows why he might just be our greatest writer on music.

Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite is published by Atlantic (£18.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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© Photograph: PR IMAGE

© Photograph: PR IMAGE

© Photograph: PR IMAGE

A companion novel to the brilliant Writers & Lovers, this delightfully witty tale of college romance matures into midlife poignancy

The university experience is a risky business in fiction. Generally, the feelings are intense, but the stakes are low; it’s all very formative for the individual character, but it can feel a bit trivial to anyone else. In fact, reading an account of someone’s university days is surely only one or two stages removed from having to hear about the dream they had last night.

So my heart initially sank at Heart the Lover’s cover promise that our main character would soon be “swept into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games” – good grief, save me from the raucous card games! But obviously the caveat here is what it always is: a good writer will make it matter. I had faith, therefore, that everything would be all right, since Lily King is an exceptionally good writer. Indeed, she could probably write a book-length account of her most recent dream and I would still rush to read it.

Havoc by Rebecca Wait (Quercus Publishing, £16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Heart the Lover by Lily King is published by Canongate (£18.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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© Photograph: Eloise King-Clements

© Photograph: Eloise King-Clements

© Photograph: Eloise King-Clements

The novelist and poet, who died a year ago, left a huge body of work distinguished by its melancholy wit and warmth. These are some of the highlights

Paul Bailey, who died last October aged 87, was best known as a novelist of comic brilliance, wide-ranging empathy – even for the worst of his characters – and a cleverness that was never clinical. His fiction was frequently occupied with the impact of memories on our lives, and usually heavily driven by sharp, syncopated dialogue. But he was also a memoirist, poet and more besides – so here’s a guide to the legacy of books he left behind.

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© Photograph: David Levenson/Guardian Design/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Levenson/Guardian Design/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Levenson/Guardian Design/Getty Images