Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth review – an American horror story

Hauntings, destructive passions and killer wasps ... this glorious doorstep of super-queer terror is presided over by the ghost of Shirley Jackson

This is the Fire review: Don Lemon’s audacious study of racism – and love

The CNN anchor’s thoughts on being a ‘double negative’ – Black and gay – show he has grown while his country largely has not

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The House Uptown by Melissa Ginsburg; My Brother by Karin Smirnoff; Dangerous Women by Hope Adams; A Fine Madness by Alan Judd; Lie Beside Me by Gytha Lodge; and A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes

Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding review – gripping quest for self-knowledge

A mother battles alcohol dependency in this moving, drily funny Irish novel

Spring Cannot Be Cancelled by David Hockney and Martin Gayford – review

Lockdown blossom ... a lavishly illustrated record of the exchanges between the artist, in Normandy, and the critic, in Cambridge, during the past year

The Believer by Sarah Krasnostein review – the faces of faith, from religion to UFOs

The new work by the author of The Trauma Cleaner is a complex, affirming and deeply humanist project, though at times uneven

A Curious Boy by Richard Fortey review – the making of a scientist

Fortey’s forte – a compelling autobiography that shows how an awkward youth became a renowned naturalist

Creation Stories review – mythmaking and megalomania in likable Alan McGee biopic

Irvine Welsh’s cracking adaption of an autobiography by the ‘President of Pop’ flashes from My Bloody Valentine to his discovery of Oasis

Kitchenly 434 by Alan Warner review – a 1970s rock Gormenghast

This gleeful satire about owning and being owned, narrated by a guitarist’s country house caretaker, concentrates 20 years of cultural change

Harvest by Georgina Harding review – unearthing the secrets of the past

The third in Harding’s cycle of novels about the Ashe family brings wisdom and compassion to a tale set against the bleak, beautiful Norfolk landscape

Silence Is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar review – a refugee’s story

How can trauma be expressed? Memories of war mingle with observations about Britain and immigration in an insightful novel

New Yorkers by Craig Taylor review – extraordinary city stories

Voices from the Big Apple – a good listener gathers and skilfully juxtaposes fascinating oral histories from cops, cleaners, car thieves and more

Empty Nest: Poems for Families, edited by Carol Ann Duffy review – the agony of absence

Fathers, mothers and grownup children reflect on leaving home and the ‘dance between closeness and distance’ in an outstanding anthology

Damned If I Do by Percival Everett review – sardonic take on identity politics

This subtle, original collection of short stories quietly subverts racial stereotypes

The Picture of Dorian Gray review – the ugly face of social media

Eternal youth and beauty exist only online in this thoroughly modern adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s fable, which counts Stephen Fry and Joanna Lumley among its impressive cast