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

The Great Dissenter review: a superb life of John Marshall Harlan, champion of equality

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not the only great supreme court justice to have made her name with dissent in the name of progress

Let Me Take You by the Hand by Jennifer Kavanagh review – true tales from London’s streets

More than 150 years after Henry Mayhew’s revelatory survey of the capital’s poor, this collection of stories shows that too little has changed

Assembly by Natasha Brown review – a modern Mrs Dalloway

A sparsely written debut about a black woman preparing for a party examines the disorienting experience of assimilation

The best recent science fiction and fantasy – reviews roundup

Widowland by CJ Carey; Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir; This Fragile Earth by Susannah Wise; Rabbits by Terry Miles; This Eden by Ed O’Loughlin; The Colours of Death by Patricia Marques

The Startup Wife by Tahmima Anam review – a deft take on tech times

A witty investigation into the misogyny and bro culture of the world of startups and social media apps

Rememberings by Sinéad O’Connor review – a tremendous catalogue of misbehaviour

From childhood beatings to a pillow fight with Prince via ripping up a picture of the pope, the singer has always done things her way

Who Gets to Be Smart by Bri Lee review – gutsy but unfocused interrogation of academic privilege

The Eggshell Skull author’s latest work endeavours to dismantle ideas about intelligence and self-worth in the Australian education system

(M)otherhood by Pragya Agarwal review – on the choices of being a woman

A candid account of the joys and agonies of becoming a mother takes aim at patriarchal constraints

The Father review – Anthony Hopkins superb in unbearably heartbreaking film

Hopkins gives a moving, Oscar-winning turn as a man with dementia in a film full of intelligent performances, disorienting time slips and powerful theatrical effects

Barcelona Dreaming by Rupert Thomson review – heartbreak and hope in the city

Three linked novellas offer an unearthly, multilayered view of Barcelona, with its beaches and bars, beauty and dark shadows

Seven Ways to Change the World by Gordon Brown review – a restless search for answers

Not just another Davos bore ... complex global issues, morality and vulnerability from the former prime minister

Mandabi review – Ousmane Sembène classic about colonialism resonates today

Senegalese feature from 1968 tells story of a simple family man whose life is turned upside down by the money he receives from a nephew in France

The Great Mistake by Jonathan Lee review – the man who shaped New York

Blunders, bad luck and ever-yearning love in a novel about the extraordinary life and death of an unsung hero