Neighbors and Other Stories by Diane Oliver review – pointed tales of black America from a talent taken young

These precocious literary fragments hint at the greatness the author might have achieved had she not died at 22

I Seek a Kind Person by Julian Borger review – the small ads that saved Jewish children from the Nazis

Borger’s account of how pleas in the Manchester Guardian by Viennese parents trying to rescue their children – one of them his father – from the Holocaust is gripping and powerful

Will You Care If I Die? review – from furious outsider to a source of salvation

Campaigner Nicolas Lunabba writes movingly about his troubled childhood and difficult work in a book addressed to an unruly teen who changed his life

In brief: Piglet; Free Play; A Spell of Good Things – review

A bride’s wedding day preparations go awry in a propulsive page-turner; a violinist’s inspirational guide to everyday creativity; and a moving Dickensian tale of two citizens in Nigeria

My Heavenly Favourite by Lucas Rijneveld review – sordid, troubling… sublime

The International Booker prize winner adds to his reputation for transgressive brilliance with this tale of a vet and a client’s teenage daughter, delivered in cyclone-force prose

Pity by Andrew McMillan review – an excavation of identity and collective memory

The poet’s debut novel explores Barnsley’s mining past and is at its sharpest on notions of community and renewed purpose

Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa by Anthony Grafton review – their dark materials

This fascinating and richly detailed study of the evolution of magic in the 15th and 16th centuries reveals that accusations of witchcraft rarely stuck to learned men

Empireworld by Sathnam Sanghera review – the charge sheet against rule Britannia

In this ambitious sequel to Empireland, the journalist travels far and wide to examine the legacy of British imperialism, piecing together an important rebuttal of revisionist narratives

The Zone of Interest review – Jonathan Glazer’s unforgettable Auschwitz drama is a brutal masterpiece

Only the constant pall of smoke, and a dread-inducing soundscape, tell of the horrors beyond the wall as the idyllic life of the commandant of the death camp and his family rolls by in Glazer’s Oscar-nominated film

We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience – review

The rise of rightwing populists has sparked renewed interest in the political philosopher’s writing on totalitarianism, and Lyndsey Stonebridge’s timely biography is compelling and original

A Dirty, Filthy Book by Michael Meyer review – sex and sanctimony

The story of Annie Besant, a Victorian woman who fought for reproductive rights

Groundbreakers by Chantal Lyons review – the whole hog

The remarkable story of Britain’s wild boar, and their controversial resurgence

The best recent poetry – review roundup

WHAT by John Cooper Clarke; Girls That Never Die by Safia Elhillo; Skin by David Harsent; Absence by Ali Lewis

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen audiobook review – the pursuit of love

Nicola Coughlan brings new life and nuance to Austen’s story of poverty-stricken sisters

John Burnside: ‘My stoner friends were into The Hobbit, but Gormenghast was darker’

The Scottish author on returning to Rimbaud, his childhood love of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the comforts of 1066 and All That