The Super Mario Bros Movie review – wackily eccentric gamer guys fall flat on screen
The second film adaptation of the phenomenally successful video game is a disappointment to rival the first
Young adult books roundup – reviews
A devastated Japan, ancient Greece and the Philippines a century ago are among the settings for this month’s picks, while section 28 cannot stop a school romance
A House for Alice by Diana Evans review – vivid tale of a homesick matriarch
Three middle-aged sisters grapple with their mother’s imminent return to Nigeria in this immersive domestic drama of becoming and belonging in post-Grenfell London
The Portable Door review – Harry Potter-ish YA fantasy carried by hardworking cast
Jeffrey Walker’s adaptation of the young-adult fantasy novel retains its edge thanks to its performances, but gets stuck on the whole door thing
Beastly: A New History of Animals and Us by Keggie Carew review – the terrible price of people power
This heartfelt study of humanity’s centuries-long contempt for other life forms is a vital reminder of the damage we have wreaked
Shy by Max Porter review – exhilarating portrait of a lost boy in 90s Britain
A young delinquent takes stock of his bad luck and bad decisions in this brief but brilliant novel from the author of Grief Is the Thing With Feathers
Aphrodite’s Breath by Susan Johnson review – a revealing memoir about mothers and daughters
A trip to Kythera for the Australian author and her mother results in this unsparing and intimate look at their intense and often unhappy dynamic
In brief: Deep Pockets; Camp Zero; Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies – reviews
An intellectual exploration of snooker, a gripping work of speculative climate fiction, and a Booker-longlisted evocation of terminal cancer
The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa by Stephen Buoro review – astute story of self-discovery
The author’s debut novel is an imaginative tale about a troubled Nigerian teenager’s rite of passage
Francisco by Alison Mills Newman review – lost classic of black radicalism
First published in 1974, this autobiographical account of a starlet’s disillusionment with Hollywood and America is urgent and shrewd
Empress of the Nile by Lynne Olson review – the unsung heroine of Egyptology unearthed
A vivid biography of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, France’s real-life ‘Indiana Jones’, lays bare her defiance of the Nazis and her ancient world discoveries
Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer review – the human face of the socialist state
This revisionist history of East Germany paints a picture of a land that catered for its people’s needs – albeit while subjecting them to constant state surveillance
American Ramble review: a riveting tale of the divided United States
Neil King Jr, once of the Wall Street Journal, walked from Washington to New York. His account of the journey is essential
Operation Chiffon by Peter Taylor review – how they talked their way out of the Troubles
In this compelling account, the author and documentary-maker describes how decades of covert communications between the British government and the IRA eased the path to the Good Friday agreement – helped by an unlikely hero
Reach for the Stars by Michael Cragg review – bubblegum pop’s finest hour
A terrific piece of social history that charts the highs and lows of the music industry at the turn of the millennium