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

Akira review – apocalyptic anime’s startling message of global annihilation

The landmark Japanese cyberpunk animation from 1988 re-emerges as a deeply strange nightmare about destruction and rebirth

The best recent thrillers – review roundup

A hate crime with a twist, supernatural forces at sea, a parent’s worst nightmare and Jack Reacher returns

The International Brigades by Giles Tremlett review – lost voices from the Spanish civil war

First-person stories reveal the truth behind a dirty and chaotic conflict

The Haunting of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale review – a ghost in the house

This reworking of a ‘true’ tale of paranormal activity in 1930s London seeks explanations beyond frauds and fakery

Not the Booker: Hello Friend We Missed You by Richard Owain Roberts – the gem of this year’s shortlist

Following a man who returns to his childhood home to care for his dying father, this comedic and painful novel is an unexpected delight

It Takes Blood and Guts by Skin with Lucy O’Brien review – memoir of a musical maverick

The pioneering Skunk Anansie frontwoman’s memories offer a very different take on the Britpop era

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami review – strange and ruthlessly honest

A sensation in Japan, this two-part novel explores womanhood, bodily disgust and motherhood with a surreal intensity of focus