The Extinction of Experience by Christine Rosen review – smartphone nation
Is technology really to blame for bad behaviour, or is something else afoot?
Ask Me Again by Clare Sestanovich review – a rare kind of friendship
Opposites attract in this subtle coming-of-age debut from an American author known for her short stories
Islamesque by Diana Darke review – the diverse roots of medieval architecture
A beautifully-illustrated account of the Middle Eastern influence on Europe’s great buildings
The Bright Side by Sumit Paul-Choudhury review – harnessing the power of positive thinking
A witty and empathetic examination of the merits and limitations of optimism is a helpful guide with a hopeful message for uncertain times
Marilyn Monroe by Eve Arnold review – intimate, tender and witty photographs
In front of the camera Monroe was luminous, but in this reissued and sumptuous collection of pictures Arnold also captured the insecurity and pain
American Genius, A Comedy by Lynne Tillman review – thoughts for the day
Unfolding over 24 hours, this captivating novel set inside the head of a woman consumed by her obsessions is as engrossing as it is unusual
In brief: Hope; Wild Chocolate; Night Watch – review
The tragicomic collapse of a wealthy family; a genre-busting exploration of the cacao trade; and a tough Pulitzer-winning tale of the US civil war
Vatican Spies by Yvonnick Denoël review – a head-spinning history of saints and sinners
A no-holds-barred account of the Vatican’s covert operations – from escape routes for Nazi war criminals to money laundering for the mafia – is revelatory but sometimes too dense for its own good
Another Man in the Street by Caryl Phillips review – Windrush struggles
This elegaic novel tracks a West Indian man’s life in London over decades, exploring the emotional cost of leaving home and being met by hatred and rejection
The Little Mermaid review – musical fable is a valentine to the oceans
In Sonali Bhattacharyya’s tale, Liana Cottrill’s striking and gracefully realised mermaid is driven to leave her home not for a crush on a prince but in order to save the seas
Water by John Boyne audiobook review – confronting grief and betrayal
A woman tries to escape her painful past in this moving novella from the author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
The best recent poetry – review roundup
Swell by Maria Ferguson; There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die by Tove Ditlevsen; Mind’s Eye by Carol Rumens; Strange Beach by Oluwaseun Olayiwola; Foxglovewise by Ange Mlinko
The Shape of Things Unseen by Adam Zeman review – the science of imagination
A neurologist’s sprawling survey of the creative mind
Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami review – humanity’s future
The spectre of extinction hangs over the Japanese writer’s brilliantly strange and unsettling vision of evolution
Gobsmacked! by Ben Yagoda review – the British invasion of American English
After years of seemingly one-way traffic, anglicisms from ginger to kerfuffle are having their moment stateside