‘I wanted it to feel both Shakespearean and like Jay-Z’: debut author Sufiyaan Salam on masculinity, rap and meeting Stormzy

Bringing Manchester’s Curry Mile to vibrant life, the #Merky prize-winning author’s cross-genre work focuses on the lives and language of young British men. He discusses identity and inspiration

‘I was mortally offended’: writers on the throwaway comments that changed their lives

Can a sentence affect the course of your life? Five authors reveal the interactions that transformed the way they saw themselves – and the world

To give young people wings: The Lost Words duo reunite for book of birds

Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane give the Guardian exclusive extracts as they aim to open eyes to the wonder of Britain’s declining and endangered species

‘One of the most profound encounters of my life’: could existential therapist Emmy van Deurzen change the way you think?

Her philosophical approach to therapy has become a global phenomenon, and inspired a new book. Could a session with her change Sophie McBain’s life?

‘On the inside I felt a rage’: Antoinette Lattouf on emerging from her bruising battle with the ABC

The former presenter says she took strength from other women’s achievements as she researched her new book during federal court case

Homebound by Portia Elan review – a Cloud Atlas-like puzzle-box novel

From 1980s Cincinnati into the interstellar darkness, the stories of four women interconnect across the centuries in a gentle hymn to found families

The best recent poetry – review roundup

Yiewsley by Daljit Nagra; Mer de Glace by Małgorzata Lebda; The Intentions of Thunder by Patricia Smith; Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak by Rishi Dastidar; Dark Night by St John of the Cross, translated by Martha Sprackland

Katie Kitamura: ‘Almost every writer changes my mind – that’s the point of reading’

The American author on the magic of Yasunari Kawabata, the hidden layers of Henry James and coming late to the genius of Muriel Spark

A Rising of the Lights by Steve Toltz review – a darkly funny take on the male loneliness epidemic

A miserable misogynist is on a quest for redemption in Toltz’s fourth novel, which fizzes with dynamic prose but struggles to engender empathy for its protagonist

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in April

Luke Kennard, Sophie Ratcliffe and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

Hey, Good Morning, How Are You? by Martina Hefter review – a hit in Germany that falls flat in English

The premise of this novel about a ballet dancer who baits love scammers into conversation is great – but the story feels overwritten and underfelt

From Life Itself by Suzy Hansen review – Turkey in the age of Erdoğan

This portrait of everyday life in an Istanbul neighbourhood buffeted by change has far wider relevance

What If Reform Wins by Peter Chappell review – a massive wake-up call

This ‘nonfiction thriller’ takes us through exactly what would happen if Nigel Farage won his dreamed-of majority

Devotions by Lucy Caldwell review – short stories that are frightening, passionate and comforting too

The Northern Irish writer explores music and family, memory and duty in this stunning collection of sharply observed tales

Lost copy of seventh-century poem in Old English discovered at Rome library

Dublin scholars find 1,200-year-old manuscript of Caedmon’s Hymn composed by Northumbrian cattle herder