Instructions for a Funeral by David Means review – love, loss and fistfights
Sly humour runs through the acclaimed American author’s fifth collection of short stories
Appeasing Hitler by Tim Bouverie review – the road to war
A well researched, pacy study of appeasement underlines the mistakes of a narrow, inflexible prime minister, and how few Britons understood the Third Reich
Outpost by Dan Richards review – a journey to the wild ends of the Earth
Views from far-flung places offer unexpected insights into our relationship with the natural world
Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me by Kate Clanchy review – the reality of school life
A teacher’s honest, personal account of state education puts individual children at its centre
Metropolis by Philip Kerr review – the last outing for Bernie Gunther
This posthumously published novel sees the world-weary Berlin cop join the murder squad on the eve of the Nazi rise to power
The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins review – a stunning debut
A slave’s journey from Jamaican plantation to English prison takes the gothic novel to new heights
The Nocturnal Brain by Guy Leschziner review – bizarre sleep stories
From eating and motorbike riding while asleep to corks in the bed as a cure for restless legs – a neurologist’s casebook
Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri review – haunting novel of life after death
An elliptical examination of the divisions between rich and poor in contemporary Japan
Choked by Beth Gardiner review – the toxic truth about the air we breathe
Diesel fumes in London, smog in Indian and Chinese cities … a global survey of air pollution explores the fight for a cleaner future
Blossoms in Autumn review by Zidrou and Aimée de Jongh – never too late to fall in love
Passion in later life between two lonely people is explored with tender sweetness
Constellations: Reflections from Life by Sinéad Gleeson – review
Intimate, polished essays about chronic bodily decline
Pie Fidelity: In Defence of British Food review – no need to scoff
Pete Brown serves up an erudite, personal apologia for our much-mocked British cuisine
The Parade by Dave Eggers review – nation-building parable by numbers
For all Eggers’s stylistic brilliance, this parable about western assistance in a strange land fails to properly explore the ideas it raises
Nina X by Ewan Morrison review – life after Comrade Chen
This moving tale of growing up in a Maoist cult, and the traumatic aftermath, explores ideas of freedom, control and identity with warmth and humour
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou – archive, 1 April 1984
Paul Bailey on the inspirational autobiography of a woman who survived rape and racism in the American south