Wimmy Road Boyz by Sufiyaan Salam review – an electric debut set on Manchester’s Curry Mile

Written in breathless multilingual prose, this coming-of-age meets state-of-the-nation novel is an incredible literary performance

Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day review – dreamy adaptation reaches for the stars

Woolf’s novel about a headstrong young Edwardian woman takes flight under Tina Gharavi’s direction, with Timothy Spall and Jennifer Saunders among the ensemble cast

My Only Boy by Rosa Rankin-Gee review – a darkly funny near-future dystopia

A surprising romance is set against a backdrop of climate crisis, political instability and corporate corruption in this bleak but witty novel

Tonight the Music Seems So Loud by Sathnam Sanghera review – a heartbreaking portrait of George Michael

This affecting exploration of the troubled genius’s impact is packed with anecdote, sharp analysis and social context

Fuck the Polis review – cryptic docu-essay is a sphinxlike study of Greek myth and modernity

This film may be making a point about the classical vis a vis the contemporary, but its visual collages and dense poetic texts render it inert

The Common Good Economy by Mariana Mazzucato review – how can Labour really turn things around?

It’s not enough to wish for growth; economic success requires a sense of purpose, according to this academic

Land by Maggie O’Farrell review – an ambitious story of mapmaking in Ireland

Set in the aftermath of the famine, the Hamnet author’s family saga folds in myth and folklore

The best recent translated fiction – review roundup

Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami; All Flesh by Ananda Devi; The White Desert by Luis López Carrasco; The Home of the Drowned by Elin Anna Labba

Prestige Drama by Séamas O’Reilly review – brilliant wry comedy of Derry and the shadow of the past

A British and American film crew descend on the Northern Irish city to film a drama about the Troubles, in a keenly observed and snappily written debut

Capture by Amanda Lohrey review – a superb novel about a study of alien abductees

The Miles Franklin winner’s plot teeters on the edge of profound silliness, but it’s also a vehicle for making meaning of our lived experiences – and those of others

The Book of Birds by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris audiobook review – a love letter to our feathered friends

This compendium profiles 49 of Britain’s threatened species, with each entry featuring a prose poem evoking the unique qualities of each bird and their meticulously recorded call

Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly review – lust at first sight

Shortlisted for the Women’s prize, this story of a writer’s infatuation with an older woman begins with bracing verve

Escaping Babylon by Jesse Bernard review – an intimate history of Black British music

A personal exploration of the sounds that defined a community, from Soul II Soul to Dizzee Rascal

What We Ask Google by Simon Rogers review – the secrets of our search history

The company’s data editor trawls through billions of queries to deliver a portrait of the world’s preoccupations

Fieldwork As a Sex Object by Meena Kandasamy review – story of a deepfake sex tape

The author of When I Hit You returns with a pithy, savagely funny tale of online shaming and the Indian manosphere