Bugger by Michael Mohammed Ahmad review – tender, unflinching and difficult to read

The author’s fourth novel offers a devastating day in the life of a 10-year-old boy who cannot be kept safe

Leaving Home by Mark Haddon review – blistering memoir of a loveless childhood

The Curious Incident author describes the upbringing that shaped him – and for which he can’t help feeling nostalgia

On the Future of Species by Adrian Woolfson review – are we on the verge of creating synthetic life?

A genomic entrepreneur’s guide to the coming revolution in biology raises troubling questions about ethics and safety

Crux by Gabriel Tallent review – a passionate portrait of teenage climbers

The follow-up to My Absolute Darling, this tale of best friends who dream of a better life features exquisite sports writing and a lovable heroine – but the plotting is unconvincing

White River Crossing by Ian McGuire review – colonial greed drives a doomed hunt for gold

The author of The North Water vividly captures bleak beauty and brutish appetites on an 18th-century expedition into the frozen wilds of Canada

Sham review – Takashi Miike revisits infamous ‘murder teacher’ trial in unflinching courtroom drama

Based on a real-life case of a teacher charged with abusing a child, Japan’s master of the extreme doesn’t sit on the fence in this two-sided retelling

The Good Society by Kate Pickett review – the Spirit Level author takes stock

A whistle-stop tour of the greatest hits of progressive policy fails to take account of a central conundrum

Rebel English Academy by Mohammed Hanif review – a sure-fire Booker contender

This funny and subversive novel reckons with life under martial law in late-70s Pakistan

Dead Souls review – Alex Cox rides into sunset with anti-Trump spaghetti western

The Repo Man director relocates Gogol’s surreal novella to the old west in what he says will be his final film

The best recent translated fiction – review roundup

White Moss by Anna Nerkagi | The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin | The Roof Beneath Their Feet by Geetanjali Shree | Berlin Shuffle by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

Wise by Frank Tallis review – how to turn your midlife crisis into a hero’s journey

A psychologist’s gripping guide to surviving dark nights of the soul offers both comfort and insight

‘Unjust and inhuman’: how royal family ignored a Black abolitionist’s plea to end the slave trade

In this adapted extract from The Crown’s Silence, which examines the royal family’s links with slavery from Elizabeth I to the present, Ottobah Cugoano directly appeals to the monarchy – but is met with silence

Robert Crumb review – sexual deviancy elevated to an art form

Though they were created for comic books, the artist’s horny and hilarious drawings of his own neuroses, and of glamazons in thigh-high boots, are unnervingly powerful on gallery walls

Virgin by Hollie McNish audiobook review – myth-shattering poetry about purity and sex

The author and spoken word artist’s delivery is full of tenderness and humour as she confronts the outdated notions of innocence that surround women

Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash review – clever comedy for our conspiracy theory age

This tender satire of a dysfunctional American family’s search for moral guidance is precisely what our times need