The full facts about debauched lives do not make happy reading, but authors from Robert Louis Stevenson to Hunter S Thompson offer thrilling reading without concealing the cost
August 2021
Book of the day
Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett – a life in books
A woman tests novels against first-hand experience in this risky, immersive narrative, which is absolutely faithful to its own raw spirit
October 2020
From the Guardian archive
Archive, 1960: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning reviewed
29 November 1960 Karel Reisz’s adaptation of the Alan Sillitoe novel is a genuine human document and a work of film art
March 2018
How 1960s cinema gave us a glimpse of our future lives
Ian Jack
A new season at the BFI showcases a Britain casting off the moorings of tradition yet uncertain where it was headed, writes Guardian columnist Ian Jack
February 2017
Brief letters
Trump’s Acorn Antiques presidency
Letters: Édouard Louis | Plastics | Child refugees | Trump’s presidency | The La Scala | Weetabix jingle
April 2016
Books blog
Books behind bars: five of the best stories about prison life
From Alan Sillitoe’s inspiring story of a long-distance runner to memoirs about what life is really like on the inside, author and former inmate Erwin James shares his favourite books about crime and prison
May 2014
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning review – terrifically portrayed postwar drabness
Patrick Knowles swaggers as the misogynistic, womanising factory hand at the centre of this adaptation of Alan Sillitoe's 1958 novel, writes Lyn Gardner
September 2013
Radio review
Archive on 4 – radio review
Nosheen Iqbal: This return to the angry young men of British drama's new wave pulled out all the stops
May 2013
The running blog
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner – running blog book club
John McKeane: Alan Sillitoe's 1959 story about rebellion won't be new to you, but the pleasure it takes in describing the 'barmy runner-brain' makes it a classic
February 2013
Nottingham travel tips: a literary city with working-class roots
Cloughie, caves, a castle, plus DH Lawrence, Lord Byron and Alan Sillitoe ... Nottingham remains a cultural touchstone
October 2012
Private Lives; Berenice; The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner – review
Noël Coward's Private Lives springs to fabulously sexy life while Racine's classic is lost in translation, writes Kate Kellaway
September 2012
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner – review
Roy Williams's masterful adaptation keeps the action in a contemporary frame of reference – the London 2011 riots, writes Alfred Hickling
From the Guardian archive
From the archive, 25 September 1959: Life through the eyes of the odd man out
Originally published in the Guardian on 25 September 1959: Alan Sillitoe's second book is a slight but most artistic study of the spirit of the outsider, the dissenter, the man apart
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner gets stage adaptation
The story of the borstal boy who turns to racing has been relocated to last year's riots. Alfred Hickling talks to writer Roy Williams and the star of the 60s film version Tom Courtenay
May 2012
Writing Britain: the nation and the landscape
Chaucer's Canterbury, Emily Brontë's moors, Graham Greene's Brighton, Kureishi's suburbia … The British Library's new exhibition explores how literature has responded to the varying landscapes of these islands. By Blake Morrison
March 2012
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – review
A revival of Alan Sillitoe's tale of young men with a taste for drinking, fighting and fornication shows lad culture is nothing new, writes Alfred Hickling
August 2011
Saturday Night riots and summery justice
Letters: Alan Sillitoe shows how such destructive acts might feel empowering to a disaffected young man in an unjust world
Top 10s
Anthony Clavane's top 10 football fictions
As another season gets under way, the author picks a dream team of beautiful game tales, from Barry Hines to BS Johnson
On the trail of Alan Sillitoe's angry young man
What does Alan Sillitoe's work say to today's youth? The morning after the riots, his son David and Chris Arnot trace the writer's footsteps through Nottingham
March 2011
Dirk Bogarde: the rebellion of a reluctant pinup
How did Dirk Bogarde get from Doctor in the House to The Night Porter? With a wilful desire to destroy his matinee idol status. And the signs were there for all to see in his early work, says Matthew Sweet
