Nikita Gill: ‘I read Flowers in the Attic too young. Someone should have stopped me’
The Indian-Irish poet on the Mahabharata retelling that inspired her to write, Arundhati Roy’s courage, and the poetry of Lucille Clifton
Where to start with: John Berger
The influential British writer and critic was born 100 years ago today. Here’s a guide to his genre-bending writing on art, love, sex, mortality and more
Was one of the great novels of the Enlightenment written by a man who thought he was a werewolf?
Surreal, mysterious and with an outlandish origin story, Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa has amassed a cult following that includes Salman Rushdie and Jerry Garcia. But it’s the book’s global humanism makes it relevant now, say the curators of a new exhibition
American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee review – a gloriously immersive follow-up to Pachinko
A Korean family is willing to sacrifice everything for their children’s education, in the third book in Lee’s Diaspora Quartet
‘He was destined for this award’: China Miéville wins Goldsmiths prize for 1,200-page novel
The Rouse, which took its author two decades to complete, was praised by judges as ‘exuberant, overflowing’
A Table for Fortune by William T Vollmann review – a hugely ambitious 3,000-page portrait of America’s decline
This insider’s history of the CIA explores the last 50 years of US foreign policy with granular detail and mordant humour
Latest Sarah J Maas book becomes UK’s fastest-selling adult fantasy novel
A Court of Splintered Harmony also records biggest single week of sales since Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman in 2015
Carrie at 50: Brian De Palma’s fiery masterpiece still has the power
The Oscar-nominated 1976 adaptation of Stephen King’s high school horror remains heartbreaking and horrifying in equal measure
Lords of Serendipity by Randy Boyagoda review – a campus satire for this moment of crisis
This propulsive, globe-trotting tale brilliantly skewers the corruption and corporatisation of higher education
The Rhyl Poster by Tom McCarthy review – is this avant-garde spy drama worth the riddles?
The hallucinatory crisis of a war-scarred jurist with a painkiller dependency makes for frustrating reading
‘Being hated is very bracing’: Helen Garner on surviving three marriages and being called a ‘rotten feminist’
Her unsparing fiction and true crime writing have made her one of Australia’s most controversial and celebrated authors. The author discusses relationships, resilience – and finding global recognition five decades into her career
Attention Seeking Behaviour by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo review – a slippery liar’s tale
Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths prize, this compelling interrogation of memory, justice and truth offers no easy answers
Bram Stoker’s Dracula audiobook review – cinematic horror with an A-list cast
Jonathan Bailey, Ella Purnell, Aimee-Lou Wood, Maggie Gyllenhaal and more bring shock and gore to an immersive retelling with real bite
Hometown by Shaun Tan review – another masterpiece from the acclaimed author-illustrator
The mind behind The Arrival returns with a triumph of a graphic novel, a vivid fable about a girl who is told by a stranger that she doesn’t belong in the only world she knows
‘We sold out tickets within 13 minutes’: new novel from romantasy author Sarah J Maas sparks fan mania
Move over Oasis – 6,000 people tried to buy 220 tickets to a masquerade ball to celebrate the release of A Court of Splintered Harmony, while specialist bookshops catering for the genre report huge sales