The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox review – an instant classic

This epic of arcane knowledge and parallel worlds is everything a fantasy should be: original, politically engaged and teeming with literary allusion

The Truth About Modern Slavery by Emily Kenway review – too much hollow talk

Governments and celebrities urge an end to 21st-century slavery. But it’s a problematic cause, too often diverting attention from reactionary policies

Names of the Women by Jeet Thayil review – Bible stories reclaimed

This fascinating but patchy novel explores female characters in the New Testament who have been marginalised and misrepresented by history

Philip Roth by Blake Bailey review – how a literary giant treated women

An impressive, complex biography of the celebrated American writer, packed with anecdotes and jokes, inevitably details his shocking attitude towards women

Surrogate by Susan Spindler review – a postmenopausal reckoning

This debut novel about a woman in her 50s who decides to carry a baby for her daughter is full of drama but weighed down by its desire to educate

In brief: The Crichel Boys; Redder Days; Miss Benson’s Beetle – reviews

Simon Fenwick reveals the intriguing history of an aesthete’s hangout, Sue Rainsford offers a chilling future vision, and Rachel Joyce sets two women on a charming 1950s Pacific adventure

Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli review – the mysteries of quantum mechanics

Having altered how we think about time, the physicist sets his sights on perhaps the most maddeningly difficult theory of all

The best recent thrillers – review roundup

Mystery unravels layer by layer in intricate tales of trafficking, abduction and a New Yorker with a sixth sense – plus, a 27th outing for Alan Banks

Invisible Walls by Hella Pick review – vital lessons from a titan of journalism

Pick recounts her incredible life story, from Kindertransport evacuee to doyenne of the diplomatic press corps, in this profound must-read

Many Different Kinds of Love by Michael Rosen review – a national treasure’s Covid diaries

Characteristic humour courses through this emotional illustrated book about the writer’s battle with Covid-19

Gay Bar by Jeremy Atherton Lin review – a lurid, literary night out

Lin summons sights and smells from San Francisco to London in a gloriously multifaceted memoir

The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing review – a powerful concept, frustratingly executed

As a tribute to vital work through the ages, Hannah Dawson’s anthology is more than welcome. But as a resource, it’s rendered hopeless

Value(s) by Mark Carney review – call for a new kind of economics

This weighty assault on the modern free market by the former governor of the Bank of England is a landmark achievement

Shooting Midnight Cowboy review: the decade’s first essential cultural history

Glenn Frankel’s book examines much more than the making of a film – it paints a portrait of an era

The Happy Traitor by Simon Kuper review – the extraordinary story of George Blake

‘I never belonged’: this is the most illuminating book yet written about the spy and his defection to the Soviet Union