The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris review – an audacious debut

Part office satire, part thriller with a twist, this is a fresh and original take on race and class in the publishing industry

Cut Short by Ciaran Thapar review – at the sharp end of austerity

A London youth worker condemns the marginalisation of young black men in a powerful study of the boys whose lives are blighted by violence

Connections by Karl Deisseroth review – artful insights into the brain

The psychiatrist and neuroscientist exploits cutting-edge technology to illuminate emotions and mental illness in these vivid case studies

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead review – a soaring achievement

Charting the parallel lives of two women – one an aviation pioneer, the other a modern movie star – this daring novel reaches great heights

The best recent thrillers – review roundup

A killer guards her real identity, racial tension at a New York publishing house, and a pilot is presented with a dreadful ultimatum

W-3: A Memoir by Bette Howland review – postcard from the edge

The American writer’s account of her stay on a psychiatric ward is as dazzling and daring as when it was first published, in 1974

The Smartest Giant in Town review – a very tall tale

Nutty animals and witty puppetry liven up this at times bleak version of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s picture book

In brief: The Cure for Good Intentions; Widowland; The Moth and the Mountain – reviews

An eye-opening memoir of leaving journalism for medicine; a gripping counterfactual novel about 1950s Britain; and the moving story of a daring attempt to climb Everest

Batlava Lake by Adam Mars-Jones review – Barry no mates

A beautifully constructed novella carefully reveals the failings of a hopelessly unperceptive British army engineer

How the Word is Passed review: After Tulsa, other forgotten atrocities

In his Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, Clint Smith delivers a corrective both necessary and poetic

Second Nature by Nathaniel Rich; Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert review – Earth SOS

Two startling accounts of humanity’s devastating impact on the natural world make it clear that any potential solution will involve huge risk

The Divorce by César Aira review – ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

The lives of three characters collide outside a Buenos Aires cafe in a literary pile-up with precious little at stake

Consumed: A Sister’s Story by Arifa Akbar review – astonishing emotional integrity

In this fearless debut, the theatre critic attempts to come to terms with the death of her gifted but troubled sibling and make sense of their fractured relationship

Seven Ways to Change the World by Gordon Brown; Go Big by Ed Miliband review – what’s the new idea?

The former Labour leaders’ visions for a better tomorrow share a stubborn political optimism, but are they on ‘the credible end of desirable’?

The big picture: Niall McDiarmid’s world on a plate

The Scottish photographer’s shots of his breakfast table suggest planets in alignment at a moment when everything is in its right and proper place