‘I dealt with everyone at a distance’: what do Joan Didion’s therapy diaries reveal about guilt, motherhood and writing?

The writer’s previously unpublished notes from her sessions with a psychiatrist offer an incredibly intimate insight into her relationship with her daughter, depression and creativity

In the Rhododendrons by Heather Christle review – back to the mother land

A poet’s memoir of family, trauma, and Virginia Woolf pulses with feeling and intelligence

The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce review – portrait of a patriarch

The mysterious death of an artist causes havoc among siblings in a novel that astutely observes family dynamics

Rosarita by Anita Desai audiobook review – a moving tale of memory and identity

Narrator Meera Simhan draws out the dreamlike atmosphere of a young Indian woman’s quest through Mexico to find out more about her mother

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty; All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman; This Is Not a Game by Kelly Mullen; The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie; Death and Other Occupations by Veronika Dapunt

Chopping Onions on My Heart by Samantha Ellis review – can you save a culture?

A woman tries to cling on to her parent’s Judeo-Arabic language – and the food, feeling and history that goes with it

The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana review – a startling road trip as original as it is timely

Two discontented young men embark on a journey that the reader quickly knows will be violent and doomed – and yet this novel remains almost unbearably tense

The Next Day by Melinda French Gates review – Melinda on life, before and after Bill

The philanthropist offers sensible advice about moving on and ditching perfectionism, but you get the impression she is struggling to take it herself

Days of Light by Megan Hunter review – Bohemian rhapsody

The privileged world of Bloomsbury group is vividly evoked in this novel of a life shaped by devastating loss

The Elephant in the Room by Liz Kalaugher review – how we make animals sick

From frogs to ferrets, an eye-opening account of the ways we affect the health of other species – and vice versa

Fun and Games by John Patrick McHugh review – teenage dreams

The tale of a 17-year-old Irish boy’s painful summer of romance and uncertain friendship captures the tenderness and menace of young men

The Penguin Lessons review – Steve Coogan seabird comedy drama tries to sell feelgood mood

Coogan does his best, but there’s a tonal mismatch here: the animal-teaches-lonely-human narrative jars with a depiction of lives in totalitarian Argentina

We Were There by Lanre Bakare review – reimagining Black Britain

A deft, documentary-like portrait of 70s and 80s Black British culture outside London

Audition by Katie Kitamura review – a literary performance of true uncanniness

An actor’s story becomes a thrillingly radical deconstruction of family relationships and the social roles we play

Crime and thrillers of the month – review

A couple’s struggle to survive a serial killer, a prank that goes terribly wrong – and the hunt for an old friend who went missing in the woods