The Ugly Stepsister review – body-horror take on Cinderella is ingenious reworking of fairy tale

Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt upends audience expectations in a feature debut that’s hyper-aware of the origin story’s sexual and patriarchal imagery

Wellwater by Karen Solie – landscapes in distress captured with raw candour

In this blazingly honest collection, the Canadian poet catalogues humanity’s destructive impact on the natural world

Paradise Logic by Sophie Kemp review – a TikTok Stepford Wives for the Pornhub era

This startling debut follows a young woman on a surreal and bluntly graphic quest to be the perfect girlfriend

Out of the Woods by Gretchen Shirm review – a compelling reflection on bearing witness

For her fourth novel, the former lawyer draws on her experience working as a legal intern in the UN tribunal for former Yugoslavia

Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert review – how pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves

The Pulitzer-nominated journalist recounts how modern misogyny has been shaped by a mass culture attuned to male desire and all-pervasive pornography

Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman review – don’t just stand there, do something

An altruistic companion to Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks aims to encourage anyone with a conscience to stop being a spectator

The Illegals by Shaun Walker review – Russian spies hiding in plain sight

The strange stories of the agents who lived apparently normal lives in the west as part of Soviet espionage programmes make compelling reading

The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia and the World’s Most Coveted microchip – review

Stephen Witt’s entertaining study of the rise of chip company Nvidia portrays its leader, Jensen Huang, as a remarkable entrepreneur – sometimes energised by anger

Delusions of Paradise by Maiwand Banayee review – a compelling rejection of fundamentalism

An Afghan exile’s account of life in war-torn Kabul and a Taliban-dominated refugee camp is an unflinching study of how radicalisation takes root, and his own renunciation of it

Overnight: Journeys, Conversations and Stories After Dark by Dan Richards review – night owls of all feathers

This immersive exploration of how we experience the nocturnal world is beautifully illuminating

Go-to author on White House reverses take on Biden and slams former president

Chris Whipple’s third book, Uncharted, hits Biden and aides like a bludgeon, with key sources who speak on the record

Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story review – richly bittersweet portrait of an Irish literary great

The dizzy highs and bitter lows of the late writer’s life are laid bare in Sinéad O’Shea’s moving documentary

Sister Europe by Nell Zink review – ramshackle wanderers in Berlin

Zink’s seventh novel, about a night of conversation and adventure, is full of wit and marvellous writing, but ultimately trails off

In brief: The Homemade God; Mythica; There Are Rivers in the Sky – review

Long-buried truths leave siblings reeling when their father dies; a fascinating reclamation of Homer’s forgotten women; and still waters run deep in a centuries-spanning novel

The North Road by Rob Cowen review – the poetry and pain of Britain’s backbone

A beautifully written study of our longest numbered route, the A1, is full of rich asides and haunting explorations, conjuring the visual pleasure of a road movie