Ian McEwan’s ‘ragbag’ of essays becomes ‘Between Books,’ a new nonfiction journey

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NEW YORK (AP) — After a decades-long run as one of the world's most acclaimed novelists, Ian McEwan has compiled his occasional nonfiction into a full-length book.

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NEW YORK (AP) — After a decades-long run as one of the world’s most acclaimed novelists, Ian McEwan has compiled his occasional nonfiction into a full-length book.

McEwan’s essay and speech collection “Between Books” will be published next spring, May 25, Alfred A. Knopf announced Wednesday. It is the first full-length work of nonfiction by the author of “Atonement,” “The Innocent,” the Booker Prize -winning “Amsterdam” and many other novels. (In 2019, the British author released a brief work of nonfiction, “Science.”)

“Between Books” includes everything from “intimate personal recollection to bold intellectual enquiry,” according to Knopf. McEwan has written a new introduction for “Between Books,” which includes material both published before and never published before.

FILE - Ian McEwan, British novelist and screenwriter, gestures as he speaks to press during an interview in London, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Joanna Chan, File)
FILE - Ian McEwan, British novelist and screenwriter, gestures as he speaks to press during an interview in London, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Joanna Chan, File)

“’Between Books’ is an intimate record of a great mind wrestling with the contours of his own life and all the themes and questions that inform his masterworks: the nature of truth and love, the human hunger for meaning and knowledge, the mysteries of the soul,” Knopf Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jordan Pavlin said in a statement.

McEwan, 78, said in a statement that for his upcoming book he “started out contemplating a ragbag of disparate pieces and ended up with what I hope is an emotional and intellectual journey.”

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