Homeschooled by Stefan Merrill Block review – a true ‘Misery’ memoir

A compelling and fitfully harrowing child’s-eye account of a mother’s unravelling

Bird Grove review – George Eliot’s true story embellished in a tender drama

Elizabeth Dulau is terrific in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s new play as the young woman set to become a daring pioneer in fiction and real life

Suckerfish by Ashani Lewis review – the ordeals of having a difficult mother

This is a wry and likably feisty account of the destructive power an unstable parent can wield over her offspring

Nonesuch by Francis Spufford review – a dazzling wartime fantasy

Dark magic, fascism and romance in blitz-stricken London: this exuberant novel is a popcorny delight

All You Need Is Kill review – time loop anime offers giant alien flower for Groundhog Day with mechs

New version of the sci-fi day-on-repeat sees a perplexed duo repeatedly battle monstrous plants but leaves you feeling as bored as the protagonist appears

As If by Isabel Waidner review – surreal doppelganger story

Two uncannily similar men switch places in an existential farce that playfully explores the precarity of working life

Politics Without Politicians by Hélène Landemore review – could we get rid of Farage, Truss and Trump?

A Yale professor’s radical proposal to replace elected leaders with ordinary people, chosen by lottery

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Barbecue at No 9 by Jennie Godfrey; A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage by MK Oliver; A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford; Holy Boy by Lee Heejoo; A Stranger in Corfu by Alex Preston

In the age of the ‘rough sex defence’, Emerald Fennell’s treatment of Wuthering Heights’ Isabella Linton is grotesque

By portraying the young woman Heathcliff abuses as a sexily willing participant in her own degradation, Fennell’s adaptation betrays the book, and her audience

I’ll Be the Monster by Sean Gilbert review – are they fantasists or psychopaths?

The dark past of a seemingly perfect couple is gradually revealed in this observant debut of obsession and control

Cold Storage review – mutant-mildew plague horror comedy stuffs fun into the fungi

Stranger Things’ Joe Keery is joined by a stellar cast battling an outbreak of virulent brain spores, but the film doesn’t offer much more than endless wisecracks and a splatterhouse grossfest

Another World by Melvyn Bragg review – portrait of the broadcaster as a young man

Leaving behind Cumbria for Oxford in the late 1950s, Bragg navigates class and culture in a world on the brink of change

Old Songs by Amy Jeffs and Gwen Burns review – ancient tales of murder, maidens and magic

These interconnected short stories of love and death, inspired by traditional ballads from the British Isles, are narrated with immediacy and warmth

Bird Deity by John Morrissey review – darkly satirical science fiction about the cost of empire

In his debut novel, the Kalkadoon writer uses the cosmic distance of an alien planet to illuminate our own

Trip to the Moon by John Yorke review – a storytelling handbook in dire need of an edit

A producer shares his tips for tight storylines, but they’re marred by verbal incontinence and hyperbole