The Lost Bus review – Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera in dynamic real-life blaze-escape movie

McConaughey plays the unassuming real hero who drove a schoolbus full of children out of California’s deadliest wildfire

Fierceland by Omar Musa review – poet and rapper’s second novel pulses with life

Following two siblings who must grapple with their father’s legacy after his death, Fierceland is at its best when Musa plays with language

The Young Man by Annie Ernaux audiobook review – anatomy of an affair

The Nobel winner explores the dynamics of her relationship with a student 30 years her junior in an intimate, taboo-breaking memoir

Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World review – sex, squalor and jungle sweat for an eternal outsider

Artists as varied as Sarah Lucas, Gwen John and Georg Baselitz are called upon by critic-curator Hilton Als to chime with the writer of Wide Sargasso Sea

The Traitors Circle by Jonathan Freedland review – a propulsive story of German resistance

A thriller-like account of the influential men and women who opposed Hitler and paid a terrible price

Clown Town by Mick Herron review – more fun and games with the Slow Horses

The ninth novel in the Slough House series, this tale of IRA infiltration is a perfect mix of one-liners, plot twists and real-world-tinged intrigue

Dracula review – Mina Harker bites back but drama is deadened by tricksy retelling

A fixation on how to frame Bram Stoker’s story disrupts the flow of this feminist reboot, killing the fear factor

One Battle After Another review – Paul Thomas Anderson’s thrillingly helter-skelter counterculture caper

Anderson updates Thomas Pynchon for the era of Ice roundups, pitting shaggy revolutionary Leonardo DiCaprio against cartoonish forces of reaction

Everything Will Swallow You by Tom Cox review – a cosy state-of-the-nation yarn

This deeply comforting tale of record collecting, magical creatures and a lovingly knitted cardigan rambles across England

On Drugs by Justin Smith-Ruiu review – a philosopher’s guide to psychedelics

What if Descartes had melted his brain on acid? Find out in this mind-expanding exploration of thought and consciousness

The Big Payback by Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryder review – the case for reparations

The TV star and his co-author make a compelling argument for properly addressing the legacies of slavery

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan review – the limits of liberalism

A century from now, a literature scholar pieces together a picture of our times in a novel that quietly compels us to consider the moral consequences of global catastrophe

We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad review – a delicious follow-up to Bunny

Scabrous satire drives this camp, goofy sequel about a cabal of writing students at an Ivy league university – its hot-boyfriend golems are adorable

Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang review – a daughter of China speaks again

The bestselling author returns with an account of how her homeland has changed – and the personal costs of fame

The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup

The Naked Light by Bridget Collins; Exiles by Mason Coile; Alchemised by SenLinYu; Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei; Big Time by Jordan Prosser