In brief: 42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams; Alchemy; Mercury Pictures Presents – review

A fascinating glimpse into the mind of the humorist and sci-fi writer; a rip-roaring historical thriller; and a subversive novel set in golden-age Hollywood

Tucker review: Chadwick Moore is less on Fox News’s former star

An admiring biography of Tucker Carlson yields further dispiriting evidence of his influence on the American right

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo – energy and lyricism drive tale of a clan wrestling with its past

A family full of women question their lives before a ‘living wake’ in the Carnegie medal-winning novelist’s triumphant first book for adults

The Land of Hope and Fear by Isabel Kershner review – how Israel betrayed its high ideals

The New York Times correspondent’s compelling history identifies the issues that have polarised a country now split by far-right extremists

Metropolitain by Andrew Martin review – a train lover’s guide to Paris

A British fan with a keen eye for detail paints a charming portrait of the beautifully designed Métro, which was conceived as the antithesis of London’s tube system

Fire Weather by John Vaillant review – apocalypse in Alberta

This telling of the 2016 inferno that engulfed the oil town of Fort McMurray, and the lives of the people who confronted it, is an urgent warning – and an all-consuming read

Hamilton: The Energetic Founder review: a fast and satisfying read

RB Bernstein, who died this year, offers a fine, concise case for seeing Alexander Hamilton as the father of the US government

Every Rising Sun by Jamila Ahmed review – a feminist take on One Thousand and One Nights

Shaherazade is a rebel with an ever-evolving cause in this novelisation of the classic tales

The best recent poetry – review roundup

Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan; So to Speak by Terrance Hayes; A ‘Working Life’ by Eileen Myles; Devotions by Mary Oliver; We Play Here by Dawn Watson

I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was by Ruby Wax audiobook review – a wild ride through depression

The writer and comedian presents an unflinching and brutally funny account of her battle with mental illness

Party Lines by Ed Gillett review – the politics of dancing

A buzzing study of how the cat-and-mouse game played by partygoers and the state shaped contemporary Britain

West Girls by Laura Elizabeth Woollett review – sexism, schoolgirls and supermodels

These cleverly interconnected stories explore the power and price of beauty, following an ethnically ambiguous girl who pretends to be part-Asian to become a model

I Will Greet the Sun Again by Khashayar J Khabushani review – a tender debut of Iranian-US identity

Three brothers are kidnapped from LA to their father’s Iran in this astonishingly accomplished tale of displacement and the search to belong

Chasing Shadows by Miles Johnson review – criminal world

A thriller-like tale of global drugs and terrorism that may be too complex for its own good

The Future Future by Adam Thirlwell review – the historical novel, subverted

This slippery, anachronistic and strangely beautiful tale of patriarchy and power moves from revolutionary Paris to a lunar commune