The Beginning of the And: Ali Smith and Sarah Wood light up Hay online
With inimitable style Smith excavates a common pun and, illustrated by film clips, explores the transformative power of a single word
Pew by Catherine Lacey review – when silence speaks volumes
A mute stranger of indeterminate gender arouses suspicion in a Christian community in this powerful exploration of identity politics
A Woman by Sibilla Aleramo review – groundbreaking
A girl’s eyes are opened to the desperate fate of wives of mothers in this forceful new translation of a feminist classic set in early 20th-century Italy
Amora by Natalia Borges Polesso review – stories of love between women
A prizewinning Brazilian collection offers nuanced snapshots of heartbreak and desire
The Consequences of Love by Gavanndra Hodge review – blighted past of a Chelsea girl
The journalist’s moving memoir recounts the consequences of an early life framed by beauty, glamour and tragedy
In brief: Writers & Lovers; Flash Crash; The Pattern in the Carpet – review
A young writer struggles with love, student loans and grief – and Margaret Drabble’s story of depression and jigsaws
Wild Child review – notes from the landscape of childhood
Patrick Barkham’s memoir about trying to raise his children in harmony with nature is thoughtful and poignant
The Swamp by Yoshiharu Tsuge review – powerfully strange
A gritty and humorous postwar Japan is depicted in these early works by the influential manga cartoonist
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld review – Hill minus Bill
Hillary Clinton’s life is brilliantly reimagined in Sittenfeld’s enjoyable sixth novel
Trumpocalypse review: David Frum bushwhacks a new axis of evil
The former George W Bush speechwriter thinks 21st-century conservatism has ‘delivered much more harm than good’
The Fairest of Them All by Maria Tatar review – the many faces of Snow White
Sultans? Pomegranates? Red hot shoes? Most people know the Disney version of Snow White, but the story has taken various forms in different cultures
Peace Talks by Tim Finch review – a moving study of love and loss
A European arbitrator leading Middle East negotiations grieves for his wife in a low-key but profound novel about human frailty
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins; We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker; Making Wolf by Tade Thompson; The Lizard by Dugald Bruce-Lockhart; The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos; and Love in Amsterdam by Nicolas Freeling
Brown Album by Porochista Khakpour review – a question of self-discovery
In this compellingly candid set of autobiographical essays, the Iranian American author recalls ‘trying on and discarding selves’
Pew by Catherine Lacey review – a foreboding fable
A silent stranger of indeterminate age, gender and ethnicity holds up a mirror to the oddness and hypocrisy of a small American town