The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt review – a boy’s search for his father
The dynamics between a single mother and her intellectually curious young son are vividly captured in this boldly inventive novel
The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain by Ian Mortimer review – wonderfully entertaining
From gristly pies to posting a letter, this account vividly captures the details of daily life during the age of Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London
Never Greener by Ruth Jones review – Gavin & Stacey co-creator’s debut is a soggy squib
Jones’s first novel, about the destructive effects of a love affair, is a far cry from the brilliance of her TV writing
Rise by Liam Young review – how Jeremy Corbyn inspired the young
A Corbyn aide sets out to explain the ‘youth surge’ on the left, but though the surge is real, and important, the book is uninspiring
In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne review – grime-infused tinderbox debut
Desire, desperation, fear and the slashed rhythms of Wiley and Skepta run through this tale of three young men in a jagged London suburb
Medieval Bodies by Jack Hartnell – history illuminated by the human body
A rich study of the middle ages in Europe and the Middle East, brings this much maligned period to life
Macbeth by Jo Nesbø review – Shakespeare reimagined
Scandinavia’s king of crime turns the tragedy into a deliciously oppressive page-turner
Johnny Ruin by Dan Dalton review – for the love of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl
In this witty, zappy fable, 80s rocker Jon Bon Jovi guides a troubled young man through his dark night of the soul
Natural Causes by Barbara Ehrenreich review – against health sages and fitness gurus
A great iconoclast has written a polemic about ageing that sends up New Age platitudes and is full of scepticism of the wellness industry
The Happy Brain by Dean Burnett review – the science of happiness
The neuroscientist, comedian and science blogger rattles through studies and reflects on his own life in a quest to find the secret of contentment
Ordinary People by Diana Evans review – magnificence and marital angst
An exuberant investigation into midlife malaise explores love, compromise and the way we live today
Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray review – is every atheist an inverted believer?
An impressively erudite work, ranging from St Augustine to Joseph Conrad, embraces an atheism that finds enough mystery in the material world
Michael Rosen’s Chocolate Cake review – half-baked sweet treat
Rosen’s epic is dished up for the stage in an adaptation that stirs in his poems about fried eggs and baked potatoes
Fiction for older children reviews – adventure seen with fresh eyes
With psychic wolves and ghostly narrators, the latest children’s novels – including one by Dave Eggers – put a new spin on familiar themes
Rosie: Scenes from a Vanished Life by Rose Tremain review – fascinating and frustrating
Rose Tremain’s account of her unhappy upper-class childhood, from postwar London to Swiss finishing school, is more intriguing than revealing