You Have Not Yet Been Defeated by Alaa Abd el-Fattah review – a message to the world from an Egyptian prison

The jailed activist’s writings, some of them smuggled out of his cell, keep the spirit of the 2011 revolution alive

The Last Woman in the World by Inga Simpson review – apocalyptic thriller preys on Australians’ worst nightmares

Simpson’s page-turner, about a recluse living in the aftermath of bushfires and pandemic, makes us see the world anew as it meditates on the importance of companionship

Skylark by Alice O’Keeffe review – inside the spy cops scandal

An undercover police officer romances a climate activist in a lovingly evoked examination of the 90s protest scene

Pity the Beast by Robin McLean review – a work of crazy brilliance

This gloriously gothic debut, set around an act of violence in the American west, demonstrates aesthetic fearlessness and real intellectual heft

Everything, All the Time, Everywhere by Stuart Jeffries review – how we became postmodern

Hip-hop, Bowie and I Love Dick are among the cultural artefacts covered in this splendidly readable survey

The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk review – a messiah’s story

The Nobel laureate’s visionary epic about 18th-century religious leader Jacob Frank takes on the biggest philosophical themes

Being Britney by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike review – one more time

An academic recounts the troubled pop star’s life, and explores her cultural meaning. But is it yet more exploitation?

The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English – a lexical treasure chest

This compendium of words and scholarly asides paints a colourful portrait of the Anglo-Saxon world

The Waiting by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim review – heartbreaking Korean war tale

The author of Grass works another miracle with this semi-autobiographical tale of a family separated by conflict

Where You Come From by Saša Stanišić review – memory in the wake of war

Past and present are in a constant state of flux in the Bosnian-German writer’s third novel – part autofiction, part Choose Your Own Adventure

Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village by Marit Kapla review – distant voices, still lives

The stories of a forest settlement’s 40 inhabitants add up to a moving, compelling paean to ordinary people

The Every by Dave Eggers review – scathing big-tech satire sequel

The writer’s follow-up to The Circle is longer and baggier, but still fuelled by rage at the power of Silicon Valley and its numbing effect on the human race

In brief: Lily: A Tale of Revenge; On Getting Better; The Walker – review

Rose Tremain powerfully evokes Victorian London in her story of an abandoned orphan; Adam Phillips ponders the meaning of change; and Matthew Beaumont follows in the footsteps of literary city explorers

The Woman from Uruguay by Pedro Mairal review – nuanced tale of a midlife crisis

This astute novella follows an Argentinian writer and his frail fantasies on a day trip to Montevideo

A Thing of Beauty by Peter Fiennes review – elegant Greek travelogue

A nature writer explores our fascination with Greek myths and their contemporary relevance in this sun-drenched adventure-cum-guide