A History of Women in 101 Objects by Annabelle Hirsch audiobook review – from hatpins to glass dildos

Miriam Margolyes, Margaret Atwood and others narrate stories of female progress via a ‘cabinet of curiosities’

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood review – a quiet novel of immense power

This story of a woman retreating from the world to a convent in New South Wales considers guilt, forgiveness and human connection

The Cancer Finishing School by Peter Goldsworthy review – a personal story told with remarkable objectivity

The doctor-writer’s account of being diagnosed with, treated for and recovering from myeloma is rich and compelling

Impossible Monsters by Michael Taylor review – fossil feuds

A marvellous history of science vs creationism in Victorian Britain

The Painter’s Daughters by Emily Howes review – Gainsborough’s girls

The spooky duality of private and public faces is explored in this compelling historical debut about the artist’s children

Don’t Look Left by Atef Abu Saif review – in the line of fire

A Palestinian author and politician’s devastating eyewitness account of the Israel-Gaza war as he saw his relatives killed

Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler review – the gender theorist goes mainstream

The US theorist and activist, who has been falsely accused of denying the importance of sex, makes a plangent appeal for gender diversity

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman review – acid comedy of precarity

The follow-up to The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P is a coruscating portrait of low-wage work in an American big-box store

Fight Club review – prescient, tremendously acted classic still feels overblown

Its ungainly final twist and unreal violence sequences dim a film with a brilliant premise and rage that still stings

Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson review – rich literary reading of the first book of the Bible

This careful analysis of the foundational text is full of telling details and keenly observed parallels

Mona of the Manor by Armistead Maupin review – tales of the country

This playful encore to a much-loved series moves from San Francisco to a grand English estate

A Year of Last Things by Michael Ondaatje review – a connoisseur of atmospheres

The author of The English Patient returns to poetry with a valedictory collection that is at home with the unknown and the romance of the incomplete

Final Verdict by Tobias Buck review – the weight of collective guilt

Reporting on the trial of a former SS camp guard, the author learns that his own grandfather was an early Nazi in this lucid, timely study of Germany’s fraught reckoning with its past

The Hunter by Tana French review – a master of her craft

In this sequel to The Searcher, the bestselling author picks up with retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper and co in a richly told tale of tangled loyalties

Sami’s Odysseys review – life obsession of Ethiopian translator of Greek myths

Robin Dimet’s heartfelt documentary follows Sami, who has spent nearly two decades translating classical mythology into Amharic, to the detriment of other parts of his life