The Spare Room review – Judy Davis is electric in thrilling adaptation of Helen Garner novel
The powerhouse actor and the author’s keen prose fuel this show about a woman grappling with grief and rage while caring for her dying friend
Salvage by Jennifer Mills review – urgent post-apocalyptic novel proposes a better way of living
In her mesmerising fifth novel set in the near-future, the Australian author offers a timely model of resistance to despair and passivity
Brotherless Night by VV Ganeshananthan audiobook review – love and conflict in Sri Lanka
The civil war transforms a young trainee doctor’s life as she copes with her feelings for a Tamil Tiger in last year’s Women’s prizewinning novel
Cal review – grieving Helen Mirren superb in compassionate Troubles romance
Mirren won best actress at Cannes in 1984 for her role as Marcella, who forms a relationship with John Lynch’s Cal – a man complicit in her husband’s murder
Love Forms by Claire Adam review – the power of a mother’s loss
Forty years on, a Trinidadian woman has never stopped looking for the daughter she gave up for adoption, in a quietly devastating novel
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life review – witty, well-played French comedy in a Bridget Jones vein
Camille Rutherford is endearing as a writer who wins a place on a Jane Austen retreat, but will she discover love or something more realistic?
Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way by Elaine Feeney review – a satisfying tale of memory and place
Stories within stories give fascinating depth to the prize-winning author’s third novel, about a woman’s return to her family home in the west of Ireland
The Sexual Evolution by Nathan H Lents review – colourful tales of animal reproduction
From gay penguin parents to snake orgies, a biology professor looks at sexual adaptation in the animal world
How Not to Be a Political Wife by Sarah Vine review – a bitter memoir of power and betrayal
She was Michael Gove’s wife and Samantha Cameron’s best friend. But then Brexit happened
Against Identity by Alexander Douglas review – a superb critique of contemporary self-obsession
A philosopher challenges us to forget about ourselves in this powerfully strange counterblast to identity fetishism
Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal review – an ambitious Indian panorama
In the first novel from the author of We Move, descendants of a proscribed intercaste marriage are connected across continents and centuries
Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen review – anything can happen on this remote Scottish island
Life is turned upside-down by a new arrival, in this weird and charming tale of nature and family – with a guest appearance from the ghost of Robert Louis Stevenson
Artists, Siblings, Visionaries by Judith Mackrell review – the remarkable lives of Gwen and Augustus John
Gwen’s talent vastly outshone her brother’s – but both are treated with subtlety in this outstanding dual biography
Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed review – the poetry, prose and passion of a Scottish modernist
Richard Baron and Ellie Zeegen’s play follows the writer from wide-eyed child discovering nature in rural Scotland to feisty care-home resident
The best recent poetry – review roundup
Southernmost: Sonnets by Leo Boix; An Interesting Detail by Kimberly Campanello; Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon; Goonie by Michael Mullen; The Age of Olive Trees by Haia Mohammed