A Rimbaud review – legendary poet’s unlikely transformation into entrepreneur is as odd as ever
Australian actor Blake Draper delivers a committed one-man performance tracking the writer as he morphs from enfant terrible to merchant
Agrippa by Robert Harris review – persuasive portrait of rivalry in ancient Rome
This fictional memoir by Octavius’s right-hand man shows us bloodshed, betrayal and hectic jockeying for power
Borges and Me review – a sweetly imagined literary odyssey through the Highlands
Luis Gnecco brings warmth, wit and quiet melancholy to Jorge Luis Borges in this gently enchanting adaptation of Jay Parini’s semi-fictional memoir
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian; Claws Out! by Bella Mackie; Plant Lady by Minyoung Kang; Children of Wolves by Lawrence Osborne; Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
The Beverly Hills Housewife by James Cahill review – a trip inside Hockney’s world
Muse Betty Freeman sits at the centre of this sun-drenched book about art, eccentricity, and the spirit of Los Angeles
Mine by Adam Ouston review – novel told in a single sentence is a hallucinatory reading experience
Ouston’s second novel follows a poet who is trapped in an abandoned mine in Tasmania while searching for inspiration for his ‘last great work’
Universality by Natasha Brown audiobook review – a sparkling multi-voiced satire
A magazine article about stolen gold sparks a culture war between a cast of politically polarised characters
Can Nothing Save Us? by Irvine Welsh review – US family saga is a late-career triumph
The Scottish author focuses on gun culture and generational conflict in this darkly satirical tale about a great power in decline
Death Note: The Musical review – wildly popular manga mystery is a killer night out
The multi-platform phenomenon makes its way to the stage, with all the supernatural hijinks, J-horror tropes and emotional intensity intact
Something Like Happiness by Tom Newlands review – a tender take on hard times, anger and autism
A twentysomething Scottish couple care for their autistic son in the bleak follow-up to Only Here, Only Now
A History of the Novel in Britain by Philip Hensher review – a masterpiece of criticism
This joyous book takes readers on a literary adventure across 300 years of fiction, from Defoe to Zadie Smith
Mayflies review – Manchester’s Haçienda roars back to life in an Edinburgh warehouse
Two men look back on their hedonistic past from a sobering present in Grid Iron’s adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s novel
I Give You My Silence by Mario Vargas Llosa review – Nobel laureate’s final novel is a love letter to Peru
This fascinating, eccentric book becomes a quirky primer on Peruvian music and culture
Momo and the Time Thieves review – kids’ fantasy jaunt sticks the boot into capitalism
This new adaptation of Michael Ende’s 1973 fantasy novel contains some neat parables for our digitally nihilistic age, but even a mystical tortoise can’t save it it from monotony
You Won’t Get Free of It by Rachel Aviv review – a subtle study of the mother-daughter bond
The most complex of female relationships is thrown into sharp relief in this moving series of essays