Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit review – deadheading with the writer and thinker
Inspired by George Orwell’s love of gardening, Solnit’s suitably rambling book should appeal to the green-fingered and the politically committed alike
Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser review – duelling novellas of charged, peerless writing
With two stories and two front covers, the reader chooses where to start: in France in the past, or in a dystopian Australian future
After We Fell review – Harry Styles-inspired romance is stupendously wooden
Fans of the YA After series should find something amid the tangled mess of plot, daytime-soap acting and inanimate passion – everyone else should look away
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow review – have we got our ancestors wrong?
This imaginative attempt to reconfigure humanity’s roots contends that early people were free to shape their own lives
Noble Ambitions by Adrian Tinniswood review – classy tour of the country house
From enterprising aristocrats to musical VIPs, this history of the stately home illuminates the changes in postwar British society in a deliciously vivid read
In brief: The Importance of Being Interested; Small Things Like These; Empireland – review
Robin Ince in conversation with scientists, a brave Irish novella from Claire Keegan, and Sathnam Sanghera’s extraordinary exploration of empire
The Joy of Small Things by Hannah Jane Parkinson review – a compendium of delights
The Guardian writer’s collection of her columns is a droll and open-hearted bite-size read
Palmares by Gayl Jones review – an enslaved child’s search for utopia
Set in 17th-century Brazil, Jones’s first novel in 20 years is an intricate, imaginative story of love and brutality
Life Without Children by Roddy Doyle review – frustrated lives in lockdown
In these emotionally charged short stories, Doyle explores love, resentment and connection through the eye of the pandemic
The Storyteller by Dave Grohl – a Foo Fighter pulls his punches
The pre-fame years of the stadium rocker take precedence over tensions in Nirvana in a family-friendly but lively collection of vignettes
Rigged review: shameless – and dangerous – catnip for Trump’s base
Mollie Hemingway says the 2020 election ‘went terribly wrong’. In a divided America, her deeply flawed book will find readers
Beyond a Fringe review – the rise and fall of Andrew Mitchell
An engrossing memoir charts the Tory MP’s ascent to cabinet, the disaster of ‘Plebgate’ and his subsequent reinvention as a scourge of Boris Johnson with honesty, insight and wit
A Carnival of Snackery by David Sedaris review – gross, moving, hilarious
The second instalment of the flâneur’s diaries takes in family relationships, book signings, shopping and monkeys
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
Riccardino by Andrea Camilleri; April in Spain by John Banville; We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride & Jo Piazza; Lemon by Kwon Yeo-sun; and The Whistling by Rebecca Netley
Powers and Thrones by Dan Jones audiobook review – delighting in peculiar details
Despite the sweeping subject matter, Jones’s reading feels relaxed as he darts through the middle ages, from the Romans to the rise of Islamic empires