On Silbury Hill review – Adam Thorpe’s odd paean to a Wiltshire chalk mound

The perennially underrated novelist is hard to follow in this diffuse extended essay, writes Rachel Cooke

Radical Cities – Latin America’s revolutionary housing solutions

Justin McGuirk's fascinating study shows that Latin American cities have much to teach the world's architects, writes Rowan Moore

Barracuda review – Christos Tsiolkas’s unsettling portrait of failure

A swimming prodigy fails to realise his potential in this deeply involving follow-up to The Slap, writes Sophia Martelli

The Essay: Homage to Caledonia; Back to Charm School; Don’t Make Me Laugh – radio review

AL Kennedy's series of essays and a documentary about Glasgow and the Commonwealth Games spoke volumes about Scotland and Scottishness, writes Euan Ferguson

Hansel and Gretel review – the woods are alive in the Dukes’ annual alfresco show

Lancaster's Williamson Park is a perfect setting for Zosia Ward's vivid retelling of multiple fairytales, writes Clare Brennan

The Fountainhead review – Ivo van Hove’s smouldering take on Ayn Rand

This mammoth production of the neocon classic shifts the focus to its enthralling and predatory femme fatale, writes Andrew Todd

Kafka’s Dick review – Alan Bennett’s one-liners come thick and fast

In David Grindley's revival, this absurd take on literary lives builds up a strong comic momentum, writes Lyn Gardner

The best books on Haiti: start your reading here

Pushpinder Khaneka: From the story of a torturer, and a novel banned by Papa Doc Duvalier to a warts and all love letter to the country

T in the Park review – Calvin Harris steals show with Will Smith pop-up

Actor's surprise visit created a defining moment, with strong festival back-up from Arctic Monkeys, Rudimental, Foxes, Kiesza and John Cooper Clarke, writes Graeme Virtue

Upstairs at the Party review – Linda Grant’s tale of early 70s student life

Linda Grant's sixth novel views 1974 and its legacy with a mixture of wistfulness and scepticism, writes Tom Cox

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? review – Roz Chast’s grimly hilarious family memoir

The New Yorker cartoonist's account of her parents' final years is sobering stuff. It's also dead funny, writes Rachel Cooke

Empty Mansions review – the life of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark

Bill Dedman and Paul Clark's account of the strange life of Huguette Clark proves the old adage that money can't buy you happiness, writes Christopher Bray

The North (And Almost Everything In It) review – a stream-of-consciousness, non-linear gazetteer of a book

Paul Morley's rambling, elegiac, highly personal paean to the north-west of England will win you over in the end, writes Stuart Maconie

Unspeakable Things review – Laurie Penny’s dissection of modern feminism

Blogger and New Statesman contributing editor Laurie Penny's new broadside isn't another sparky handbook but a call to arms, writes Liz Hoggard

In Love and War review – Alex Preston’s affecting third novel

Alex Preston's tale of a young Englishman in wartime Florence is ambitious, complex and profoundly moving, writes Stephanie Merritt