Children of Radium by Joe Dunthorne review – complicity, courage and cowardice examined in a slippery marvel

The Submarine author employs that novel’s warmth and wit in his investigation into whether his great-grandfather knowingly helped to make chemical weapons for the Nazis

We Were There by Lanre Bakare review – the forgotten voices of black Britain

The author’s sharply intelligent history of how black British identity was forged beyond London in the cauldron of the Thatcherite 1970s and 80s is a necessary corrective

Chopping Onions on my Heart by Samantha Ellis review – an Iraqi Jew’s celebration of an endangered culture

In this deeply personal but wryly funny memoir, the author examines her Middle Eastern ancestry and asks what it means to witness her community and their traditions fade from memory

The Best of Everything by Kit de Waal review – a warm story of second starts

A bereaved woman forms new relationships in the author’s first novel in seven years, a tender and funny tale of forgiveness

In brief: Bad Nature; Bad Friend; The Flitting – review

An impelling US road-trip for our times; an enlightening cultural history of female friendships; and a bond forged over butterflies for a son and his dying father

When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter review – all the fun of the Fair

In his memoir the former Vanity Fair editor and man-about-town recalls the golden age of glossy magazines, when sales were in the millions and ‘the budget had no ceiling’

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown review – you’ll read nothing else like it this year

This exhilarating debut about working-class girls growing up in the hope-starved atmosphere of a small northern English city feels essential

My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss audiobook review – a life shaped by anorexia and literature

The Scottish actor Morven Christie draws out the forlorn beauty of the prose in this haunting memoir

The best recent poetry – review roundup

Dante’s Inferno by Lorna Goodison; Wellwater by Karen Solie; Chaotic Good by Isabelle Baafi; Find Me As the Creature I Am by Emily Jungmin Yoon; Ecstasy by Alex Dimitrov

When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter review – juicy stories from the heyday of magazines

From Anna Wintour’s table manners to Oscar party hijinks, the former editor of Vanity Fair tells all

Orpheus Nine by Chris Flynn review – this unsettling novel is utterly compelling

In his fourth novel, the author leans into dark and surreal territory, focusing on a small Australian town during a mysterious global catastrophe

The Possibility of Tenderness by Jason Allen-Paisant review – a Jamaican childhood

The poet and writer returns to the May Day mountains in a gentle rumination on family and nature

Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo review – a gender-swapped Moby-Dick

A runaway orphan from coastal Kent is the protagonist in this tightly plotted reimagining of Herman Melville’s whaling classic

Affairs by Juliet Rosenfeld review – the truth about why we cheat

A psychotherapist explores the nature of infidelity through a series of case studies

The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits review – a quietly brilliant midlife roadtrip

Once your kids are at university, what’s next for you? This compelling depiction of life at a crossroads is a male counterpart to Miranda July’s All Fours