I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke review – chapter and verse

This riveting memoir of the Salford dandy’s ascent to national treasuredom charms with tales of heroin and Sugar Puffs

The Man Who Ran Washington review: James Baker as Republican titan from an age long gone

Peter Baker and Susan Glasser are superb on the ‘Velvet Hammer’, who served Reagan and the Bushes but also reached across the aisle

The best recent poetry collections – review roundup

Runaway by Jorie Graham; It Says Here by Sean O’Brien; The Problem of the Many by Timothy Donnelly; and The Perfect Nine by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

The SS Officer’s Armchair by Daniel Lee review – the life of an ‘ordinary Nazi’

The compelling story of tracking down the secrets of a ‘desk murderer’ and confronting his family with his crimes

A Lover’s Discourse by Xiaolu Guo review – cross-cultural echoes

The story of a Chinese woman in London becomes a meditation on language and desire

What Were We Thinking review: Carlos Lozada on why Trump books matter

The Washington Post critic read 150 Trump books, somehow stayed sane and wrote an elegant yet lacerating response

Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh review – meandering murder mystery

Is it a thriller, a psychological drama or dark comedy? The answer remains as unclear as the narrative in this followup to My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Labours of Love by Madeleine Bunting review – a humbling book about care

Care, paid and unpaid, is at the heart of society, now more than ever ... this is a moving and absorbing in-depth investigation

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason review – an incredibly funny and devastating debut

In the hands of its acerbic narrator – dealing with a crushing mental illness – even the darkest material is handled lightly, and is all the more powerful for it

The Nine Lives of Pakistan by Declan Walsh review – first-rate reportage

The acclaimed correspondent captures a country torn apart by military aggression and religious extremism, and tries to work out why he was expelled

Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes review – rescuing women in Greek myths

Helen of Troy, Aphrodite, Medea ... putting women centre stage in an enjoyable, witty look at the ways in which their stories have been changed over time

The Abstainer by Ian McGuire review – ‘The Wire by gaslight’

A gripping revenge thriller from the author of The North Water about the 19th-century struggle between Manchester police and Irish nationalists

I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke review – wry and dry

The ‘bargain-basement Baudelaire’ looks back at his life with an unflinching gaze, plus plenty of gags and mad anecdotes

The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay review – an extraordinary debut

A pandemic enables animals and humans to communicate, in a fierce and funny exploration of other consciousnesses and the limits of language

To the End of the World by Rupert Everett review – a delightful writer on modern fame

Chatting up Thierry Henry, being sick on Colin Firth ... and the saga of an obsession with Oscar Wilde, told in this third memoir with Everett’s usual seductive style