Being Bridget Jones review – a sense of humour that came to define an era

Marking 25 years since Helen Fielding’s creation first appeared in a newspaper column, the stars of the films and many more line up to offer real insight

Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price review – the Vikings on their own terms

A fascinating, wide-ranging history that looks beyond the conquests and goes inside the Norse mind, summoning up the voices of the past

The Knowledge Machine by Michael Strevens review – how science works

A fascinating and timely history of how science developed via the achievement of pursuing only observation and experiment (not politics)

Inge’s War by Svenja O’Donnell review – the burden of secrecy

Decadent 1930s Berlin, a wartime first love and escape from the advancing Red Army feature in this absorbing study of the author’s grandmother

Not a Novel by Jenny Erpenbeck review – a moral journey

One of the most vital writers working today ... the German novelist’s precision and humanity are evident in these essays

Men on Horseback by David A Bell review – the power of charisma in the age of revolution

How the intellectual and cultural forces of the Enlightenment found a potent expression in cults of personality

Kindred by Rebecca Wragg Sykes review – a new understanding of humanity

In this impressive reassessment Neanderthals emerge as complex, clever and caring, with a lot to tell us about human life

Ordesa by Manuel Vilas review – testing the limits of the autobiographical novel

Death is old-fashioned, declares the writer of this sly Spanish autofiction about family and grief

The Bookseller’s Tale by Martin Latham review – a literary celebration

Martin Latham, a bookseller for 35 years, has put together a heady mix of history, philosophy, anecdotes and entertaining facts

A Tomb With a View by Peter Ross review – the glory of graveyards

An evocative and uplifting study of cemeteries, where every headstone has a story to tell

The Haunting of Alice Bowles review – murder at a time of plague

This MR James ghost story has been rethought as a suspenseful tale for the Covid era, with a standout performance from Tamzin Outhwaite

Farewell, Ghosts by Nadia Terranova review – legacies of trauma

A mother and daughter are suspended in grief, in this haunting Italian novel

Collected Stories by Shirley Hazzard review – trials of love and war

In the Australian-American author’s precise fiction, devastation is the subject and the aim - and the reader is not spared

Children’s books roundup – the best new picture books and novels

Enchanted kingdoms, a history of music and the return of Dogger ... great titles for Christmas and the new year

Bland Fanatics by Pankaj Mishra review – ‘Anglo-American delusions’

Versus Niall Ferguson and Jordan Peterson ... a set of essays from a writer who excels at calling out intellectual vapidities but now needs to ask new questions