It’s not just the Odyssey effect: poetry is booming because it’s the only language for these times of violence and chaos

From Homer’s epic to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, we can see how poetry fills the gap when ordinary ways of writing or speaking aren’t enough, says Guardian chief culture writer Charlotte Higgins

Practical Magic review – Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock’s 90s witchy fantasy still enchants

Preceding a long-awaited sequel, Griffin Dunne’s supernatural suburban romance gets a big-screen rerelease. With its romcom quirk, buttery cinematography and stabs of black comedy, it remains a zany gem

Tell us: has Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey stoked your interest in classics and poetry?

We would like to hear from people for whom the film has increased their interest in poetry or classics in general

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey gives UK poetry sales an epic boost

Poetry sales surpassed £8m in the first 30 weeks of 2026 and are expected to reach a record high this year thanks to blockbuster adaptation of Homer’s 2,700-year-old poem

Prisoners of Paradise review – Ellie Bamber heads to Mauritius for chaste literary tale of star-crossed lovers

An upper-class Englishwoman falls in love with a worker on her uncle’s sugar plantation in this insipid adaptation of Romesh Gunesekera’s novel

The Summer Book review – Glenn Close powers sweet-natured take on Tove Jansson’s grief classic

This sensitive adaptation of Jansson’s 1972 novel, set in the beatific Gulf of Finland, is a quiet treatise on life and death

Nolan’s film could make The Odyssey the most sought-after book in the US

The nearly 2,700-year-old epic poem is flying off shelves at bookstores and libraries after the blockbuster film came out

The Ribbon Hero review – do-gooder princess battles giant flying earwigs in update of classic yarn

Yûki Igarashi’s adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s influential manga is a conservative (if impressively animated) reimagining that dulls the source material’s pioneering elements

The right hates The Odyssey because of its ‘wokeness’ – but it missed an even bigger threat to its worldview

The new film extols the value of a rules-based world order. That’s far more radical than any casting decision says Labour MP and classicist Peter Swallow

‘Am I 68? 69?’ Irvine Welsh on growing old, getting clean, bashing out his new novel – and flirting with guns

Three decades after he channelled his heroin addiction into the cult classic Trainspotting, the Scottish author has discovered the joys of yoga, breathwork and standing desks. But is he quite as ‘Zen’ as he claims?

‘A towering piece of monoculture’: how The Odyssey discourse has dominated this summer

Christopher Nolan’s smash hit epic has continued to excite and enrage everyone from rightwingers to academics, an old-fashioned throwback to a uniting big-screen event

From Ish to Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret – the week in rave reviews

A poetic coming-of-age tale haunted by racial profiling among the Asian community in Luton, while a BBC documentary unearths troubling allegations against the high profile celeb. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

Netflix sued for $105m over stolen Nicolas Cage war thriller

Makers of unreleased $45m film Fortitude sue after hard drive stolen from streamer’s Los Angeles office

‘I was hyperventilating and sobbing’: Tomi Adeyemi says Children of Blood and Bone film ‘the worst thing I’ve ever lived through’

Author of books behind forthcoming film starring Viola Davis and Idris Elba appears to have had disagreement with cast member Amandla Stenberg

‘The crude language of Maga folks’: Joyce Carol Oates criticises Emily Wilson for criticising Nolan’s Odyssey

The novelist suggested Wilson should have been ‘a wee bit more thoughtful and respectful’ towards a film-maker who may have helped boost her book sales