Antkind by Charlie Kaufman review – a screenwriter’s debut

Puppetry, metafictional self-awareness and incessant cultural referencing – all Kaufman’s trademarks in a novel that leaves the reader punchdrunk

White Too Long review: how race trumped American Christianity

Robert Jones wants churches to engage in reckoning, restitution and repentance. But incrementalism has much to recommend it too

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

A Dickensian orphanage, a rip-roaring secret agent caper, hunting for monsters and the best new YA novels

The Crown in Crisis by Alexander Larman review – abdication, assassination and the Nazis

A new account of the difficulties of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, with contemporary resonances and speculation about an attempt to kill Edward VIII

The Australian book you should read next: Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook

The story of the preppy city-bred schoolteacher in outback Australia is easy to explain, the novel’s nightmarish tension not so much

The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams review – big ideas in a minor key

Further adventures in love and language from the author of Attrib., as two lexicographers a century apart juggle meaning and made-up words

Murder on the Middle Passage by Nicholas Rogers review – slavery and the British empire

An atrocity unpunished ... forget the triumphant tales of abolition – the brutal death of a teenage slave girl reveals important truths of Britain’s imperial history

How the ‘hub’ became the most fashionable place to be

There are technology hubs, startup hubs, ‘creative coffee hubs’ and now plans for a ‘government hub’ in York

x + y by Eugenia Cheng review – an end to the gender wars?

A bold and optimistic theory of gender and cooperation, based on the insights of maths

Owls of the Eastern Ice by Jonathan C Slaght review – an extraordinary quest

Drinking ethanol and saving the world ... an old-school, tautly strung adventure in pursuit of the largest species of owl

Wendy, Master of Art review – witty graphic novel unleashes hipster hell

Time for Lacanian sculpture and the semiotics of string in this third outing for Walter Scott’s winningly messy heroine

Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L Trump review – a scathing takedown of Uncle Donald

This blistering memoir by the president’s niece reveals the twisted dynamic of America’s ‘malignantly dysfunctional’ first family

Modern Times by Cathy Sweeney – twisted fables from a new talent

The debut Irish author delivers taut, surreal tales that take your breath away

Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told? by Jenny Diski review – supremely sharp

The late writer’s singular qualities shine through in these brilliant columns for the London Review of Books

In brief: The Family Clause; Anti-Social; My Name Is Why – review

A Swedish family at war, tales from the Asbo frontline, and an affecting memoir of brutality and hope