Kudos by Rachel Cusk review – exquisite control
With the final part in place, Cusk’s ‘Faye’ trilogy stands as a landmark of contemporary English literature
Who Is Rich? by Matthew Klam – review
This tale of a philandering cartoonist is an enjoyably deadpan ode to the disappointments of middle age
The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story by Christie Watson – review
Watson’s absorbing account of her former life as a children’s nurse illuminates hospital wards and corridors – and the state of the NHS
In brief: Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty; The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder; The Sparsholt Affair
Jacqueline Rose’s study of motherhood and culture; Sarah J Harris’s synaesthetic mystery; and Alan Hollinghurst’s decades-spanning novel of art, identity and gay lives
Chasing Hillary; Dear Madam President review – followers of a lost cause
Two emotional accounts of Hillary Clinton’s poll defeat – from Jennifer Palmieri and Amy Chozick – veer from lachrymose to wickedly readable
The Sun Does Shine review: death row memoir spotlights a judicial ‘lynching’
Anthony Ray Hinton spent decades in jail for crimes he did not commit. His book is a harrowing masterpiece
Amy Bloom: ‘Being a writer is a tremendous privilege but does not always go smoothly’
The US novelist talks about the struggle to write her new book about Eleanor Roosevelt’s secret lesbian affair
Book clinic: which current authors produce the most magical prose?
The supernatural, witchcraft or sex can be spellbinding, while others conjure gold from the everyday human struggle
In Byron’s Wake and Ada Lovelace reviews – computing reputations
Annabella Byron is rescued from more than a century of bad press, while three mathematicians consider her daughter’s particular genius
Children’s and teens roundup: the best new picture books and novels
Novels in verse, rival puffins and what really happened after Humpty Dumpty’s great fall
The Secret Barrister review – a justice system that is utterly broken
Many people think barristers strut around courtrooms barking ‘objection’. It is as wrong as assuming the justice system can survive recent cuts
The Illumination of Ursula Flight by Anna-Marie Crowhurst review – a romp through Restoration England
A spirited aspiring playwright is determined to shape her own destiny in this stylish homage to Restoration theatre
Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala review – a vivid coming-of-age story
A gay student in Washington DC feels the backlash from his religious Nigerian parents in a novel that examines homophobia and racial injustice in the US
The Recovering by Leslie Jamison review – on giving up booze
This much-touted literary love letter to Alcoholics Anonymous is too moral in its argument for the superiority of the sober
The Neighbourhood by Mario Vargas Llosa review – scandal in a nation of gossips
The murder of a tabloid editor drives this busy story about sexual and political banditry set in 1990s Lima, from the Peruvian Nobel laureate