The longlist for the Polari First Book Prize was announced last night (Wednesday 1st June, 2016) at the Polari Literary Salon in London’s Southbank Centre. Now in its sixth year, the Prize is awarded annually to a writer whose first book explores the LGBT experience, whether in poetry, prose, fiction or non-fiction.

Janine di Giovanni, Middle East editor of Newsweek and author of The Morning They Came For Us: Dispatches From Syria and Madness Visible was awarded the Hay Festival 2016 Medal for Prose in front of a sell-out crowd on day four of the landmark literary festival on Sunday 29 May, 2016.

Over four thousand secondary pupils filled the Hay Festival 2016 site for a day of discussion and debate today, ahead of a packed weekend of programming at the UK’s leading literary festival.

Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné, is unveiled for the first time today alongside a one-day exhibition of some of the artist’s rarely seen works in Soho, London. 

Serialised exclusively in the Daily Mail today (Why we MUST quit the EU, by Cameron's guru), The Sunday Times bestseller and one of the bestselling political books of 2015 – More Human: Designing a World Where People Come First by Steve Hilton – is being published for the first time in paperback in a new edition with more world-changing ideas.

Got a tricky question about an A Level subject? Hay Festival (26 May – 5 June) is here to help this half-term. Hay Levels Live is a new initiative offering Sixth Form students the chance to quiz distinguished speakers live at Hay Festival 2016 and online.

Debut novel The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley has tonight been crowned Book of the Year at the newly revamped 2016 British Book Industry Awards, beating off stiff competition from both literary heavyweights and commercial blockbusters including major international sensations Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins and Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee.

On Wednesday 4th May, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Naomi Klein delivered the 2016 Edward W. Said London lecture at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre: Let Them Drown – The Violence of Othering in a Warming World

To celebrate the forthcoming worldwide publication of Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné, the Estate of Francis Bacon is staging a one-day-only exhibition: Francis Bacon: Six Studies in Soho.

(Image: Francis Bacon, Triptych, 1987. Oil on canvas. © The Estate of Francis Bacon / DACS London 2016. All rights reserved) 

Keep Me Posted by Lisa Beazley - a fresh and funny debut about the struggles of keeping in touch, keeping it real and keeping it together - is published in the UK today by Text Publishing.