Smiley Face Killers review – a blunt blade from Bret Easton Ellis
The American Psycho author’s script, based on a series of real-life tragedies, fails the true-crime research standard
The Last Libertines by Benedetta Craveri review – dangerous liaisons
Multiple seductions and elegant riddles - how 18th-century French noblemen enjoyed life before the guillotine fell
Daddy by Emma Cline review – an unflinching collection
From toxic masculinity to the #MeToo movement, the author of Girls captures the rocky recalibrations at work in sexual culture
Xstabeth by David Keenan review – the mystical power of music
A haunting, visionary novel that moves from St Petersburg to St Andrews, with ghosts and saints hovering over every page
The Midnight Sky review – beardy George Clooney marooned in bland cosmic yarn
Clooney desperately tries to warn a returning spaceship of earthly apocalypse in this languid space caper
Love in the Blitz by Eileen Alexander review – romance and bombs
A fascinating account, via witty, candid letters, of one woman’s experience in London during the second world war
A Christmas Carol review – Nicholas Hytner delivers an ode to theatre
Simon Russell Beale stars in an economical Dickens adaptation that reminds us of the richness of live theatre
God 99 by Hassan Blasim review – history of a people’s turmoil
An admirably fearless account of the tragic fallout from the US-led invasion of Iraq
The Fall of a Sparrow review – Vivien Eliot, TS Eliot and ‘utter hell’
Ann Pasternak Slater has written a partial account of the life of Vivien Eliot in which her famous husband’s behaviour is always tip-top
Young Heroes of the Soviet Union by Alex Halberstadt – review
The grandson of Stalin’s last surviving bodyguard turns interrogator in this engrossing and tragic family history
The Godless Gospel by Julian Baggini review – Jesus as a moral teacher
Christ without the supernatural ... reflections on a divisive preacher who speaks to our times but was no personal therapist
Books for wine lovers
There’s only one thing better than tasting wine and that’s reading about it. Here are a few book recommendations alongside suggested tipples to drink while you read
What next? Three books for America after Trump
Thomas Ricks, Jon Meacham and Edmund Fawcett consider what the 45th president has done – and if recovery is possible
Life without Air by Daisy Lafarge review – ecological poetry
A fierce and clear-eyed debut that finds a fresh way to explore humankind’s role in environmental chaos
Nala’s World by Dean Nicholson – one man and his cat
The round-the-world cycle ride that turned into an internet sensation – with the help of a feline companion