Children and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

Caring canines; daring donuts; a golden monkey; a boy from another planet; a dark take on Little Women and more

Custody: The Secret History of Mothers by Lara Feigel – why women still have to fight for their children

Feigel uses her own experience as a starting point to examine the past, present and future of separation

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry review – a dazzling puzzle-box of a debut

The plight of a reluctant medieval king is glimpsed through scattered pieces of the past, in an ingenious novel that asks how much we can really know about history

Workhorse by Caroline Palmer review – a Devil Wears Prada-style tale of ambition

Dark obsessions drive this debut about the golden era of magazines – but its vile and hilarious heroine is not someone you want to spend so much time with

On Censorship by Ai Weiwei review – are we losing the battle for free speech?

China isn’t the only country imposing limits on creative expression, argues the provocative artist

Vigil by George Saunders review – will a world-wrecking oil tycoon repent?

The ghosts of Lincoln in the Bardo return to confront a dying oil man’s destructive legacy – but this time they feel like a gimmick

Cameo by Rob Doyle review – a fantasy of literary celebrity in the culture war era

In this larky autofiction, the ups and downs of creative life are cartoonishly dramatised as the writer becomes an action hero

Be More Bird by Candida Meyrick review – less soaring avian self-help than a parroting of tired cliches

This contrived addition to a sub-genre popularised by H is for Hawk and Raising Hare falls to earth with a thud

Departure(s) by Julian Barnes review – this final novel is a slippery affair

Memoir merges with fiction as the author reflects on failed love, ageing and the end of life in this last instalment to his writing career

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Cut Up by Louise Welsh; The Persian by David McCloskey; The 10:12 by Anna Maloney; Very Slowly All at Once by Lauren Schott; Vivian Dies Again by CE Hulse

Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray review – friends, lovers or something in between?

From classmates to co-parents, the changing dynamics of a female friendship are astutely observed in a novel that explores the boundaries between love, lust and companionship

H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald audiobook review – a soaring journey through grief

The author brings introspection and humour to their inspiring account of how a young goshawk helped them cope after the loss of their father

Off the Scales by Aimee Donnellan review – inside the Ozempic revolution

A fascinating deep dive into the discovery, use and implications of a revolutionary new treatment

The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths review – a powerful portrait of loss and violence

The death of a friend and the attempted murder of her husband Salman Rushdie loom large in the poet’s moving memoir

Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy – the follow-up to I’m Glad My Mom Died

Family trauma shapes a student’s affair with her teacher in this bleak and funny fiction debut from the American memoirist