How Was It for You? by Virginia Nicholson review – women, sex and power in the 1960s

Mini skirts, music, the pill … Does a chronicle of women’s lives in the 60s really grasp what the decade meant?

Memories of the Future by Siri Hustvedt review – who tells the story?

A novelist looks back at her younger self in 1970s New York in this smart investigation of misogyny, authority and the nature of fiction

Immigrant writers escape the narratives imposed on them in Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman’s follow-up to The Good Immigrant

The third book in Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet is her best yet, a dazzling hymn to hope, uniting the past and present

Owen Matthews’s rip-roaring account of the life of Richard Sorge is great fun

Sharp prose and visual artwork combine in these seductive modern ghost stories

A Chicago academic makes a spirited argument for two movements that marked the start of the 21st century

Absurdist elements undermine Maggie Gee’s novel about a family riven by violence

Randolph Nesse’s insightful book suggests that conditions such as anxiety and depression have a clear evolutionary purpose

An actress falls for a dominatrix in this mature, feminist spin on BDSM literature

A richly detailed chronicle of Arab language and culture offers thought-provoking parallels between past and present

Annie Ernaux’s memoir is painful and politicised, Meike Ziervogel’s novel evokes grief in 1950s Germany and Kate Mosse delivers another intricate hit

The 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has written the best political autobiography since Barack Obama

The British author on community and speaking truth to power

Rachel Cooke recommends budget classics and hip recipes from the store cupboard