The Ghost of the Mountains by Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi review – the secrets of the snow leopard

An Indian mountaineer follows in the footsteps of explorers and conservationists in search of an enigmatic animal

Prisoners of Paradise review – Ellie Bamber heads to Mauritius for chaste literary tale of star-crossed lovers

An upper-class Englishwoman falls in love with a worker on her uncle’s sugar plantation in this insipid adaptation of Romesh Gunesekera’s novel

Children of the Wild by Kevin Powers review – gripping tale of a friendship forged in war

Written by a US army veteran, this novel of courage and cruelty during the first world war is filled with unsettlingly authoritative depictions of violence – but its characters are less believable

Geography of Heaven by Rory MacLean – soul-searching journeys into the afterlife

From an ashram in India to an ayahuasca ceremony in Peru, a travel writer searches for meaning after the death of his wife

The Summer Book review – Glenn Close powers sweet-natured take on Tove Jansson’s grief classic

This sensitive adaptation of Jansson’s 1972 novel, set in the beatific Gulf of Finland, is a quiet treatise on life and death

The Ribbon Hero review – do-gooder princess battles giant flying earwigs in update of classic yarn

Yûki Igarashi’s adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s influential manga is a conservative (if impressively animated) reimagining that dulls the source material’s pioneering elements

Exhibition by Alex Hyde review – an elegiac love letter to the YBA era

London’s 90s art scene forms the backdrop to this tale of a complex relationship between two artists whose identities become entangled in their creative collaboration

The August Coup by Robert Service review – the drink-soaked collapse of the Soviet Union

This brilliant account of attempts by the old guard to take back control captures the ludicrousness of it all beautifully

The best recent poetry – review roundup

Small Birds Singing by Matthew Welton; The Channel by Jana Prikryl; Stepmother by Helen Mort; Drunken Driving by Martina Evans

Jacaranda by Gaël Faye review – the limits of forgiveness after Rwanda

This bold family saga explores a search for healing and truth in the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide

Rite of Spring by Kris Kneen review – a woman’s sexual awakening lurks in the ocean’s depths

A couple sign up as lighthouse keepers on an isolated island off Tasmania. But Miranda is on the cusp of a transformation – and sex is everywhere

Helm by Sarah Hall audiobook review – a breath of fresh air from the Pennines

Louise Brealey teases out the playful and poetic moments of these shapeshifting stories, told from the perspective of the northeasterly wind and those it has wreaked chaos on through the ages

Mario Vargas Llosa by Gerald Martin review – the Peruvian leftist who fell in love with Margaret Thatcher

This stylish biography of the author traces his journey from left to right, and from ‘posh Lima’ to Cricklewood

Billy Liar review – Tom Courtenay is superb in classic study of a young man and his quixotic dreams

Courtenay gives a beautiful performance as the undertaker’s clerk who nurses preposterous ambitions. But the film is too quick to surrender them

Alive by Melanie Challenger review – a maverick study of what it means to have a body

In this disorienting book, a poet argues we have been looking at nature – and ourselves – the wrong way