Jane Campion: ‘If New Zealand can be Middle Earth, it can be Montana’

The director’s new film is a powerful study of masculinity set on a ranch in the 1920s

A dozen ways to ditch the football

Twelve ways to spend 90 minutes this evening if you have no interest in watching the World Cup

100 books by women you have to read

Iris Murdoch, Edna O’Brien, Marian Keyes and Eimear McBride all appear on the list

4th of July: Eileen Battersby’s best short stories for Independence Day

From Cheever to Ron Rash, Carver to Eudora Welty, O’Connor to Richard Ford, some of the finest American writing is to be found in the short form

The Lighter Side

10 minutes with . . . Margot Slattery, country president, Sodexo Ireland

Thien leads shortlist for Baileys Women’s prize for Fiction

Three British writers among contenders as some big names omitted from final list

Eimear McBride on Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist

Irish author’s ‘The Lesser Bohemians’ faces competition from Atwood, Proulx and others

‘Brokeback Mountain’ author Annie Proulx at Iron Mountain

Writer praises Dermot Healy at literature festival but has a pop at John Steinbeck

Hidden history embedded in objects that surround us

Lisa Godson column: New book tells the story of everyday objects

Jane Lythell: ‘Flawed people are interesting. It doesn’t matter if your readers dislike them’

Brought to Book Q&A: Former Bafta CEO on her favourite authors and writing her own novels

Review: Attacca Quartet

Elizabeth Gilbert: Finding fertile ground after ‘Eat Pray Love’

Elizabeth Gilbert is infinitely proud of her bestselling memoir – but she says that her new novel, ‘The Signature of All Things’, is her best work yet