Liars by Sarah Manguso review – searing tale of a toxic marriage
This compulsive, claustrophobic account of a bad relationship becomes starved of oxygen in the same way the narrator is
Sorry, Blake Lively: using a movie about domestic violence to sell stuff is not a good look
In a car-crash promotional tour for the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s controversial novel It Ends With Us, the actor has tried to flog not only her husband’s gin brand, but also a haircare line, writes Arwa Mahdawi
The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable review – compelling tale of Vivaldi’s musical protege
A well-crafted historical fiction inspired by the composer’s tenure as music teacher in a Venetian orphanage
The Last Dream by Pedro Almodóvar review – fantastical fictions and candid personal curios
The Spanish director’s 12 tales, written between the late 60s and today, are a heady mix of factual and fictitious, befitting of one of cinema’s most imaginative storytellers
Yr Dead by Sam Sax review – comedy and darkness in an inventive debut novel
A young queer activist looks back on how a complex life unspooled into a final, fatal act in the award-winning poet’s ambitious, unflinching tale
The Voyage Home by Pat Barker review – a gritty Greek game of thrones
Agamemnon’s fateful return home reads like a blockbuster in the colourful third instalment of Barker’s women-centred Trojan wars series
In brief: The Most; The Ghost Lake; Anansi’s Gold – reviews
A too-brief dissection of a 1950s American marriage; an affecting working-class memoir of grief and landscape; and an engrossing tale of a massively successful Ghanaian con artist
Other Women by Emma Flint review – a gripping dissection of an affair
A love triangle culminates in tragedy in this cleverly constructed thriller, based on real-life events
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson; Guilty By Definition by Susie Dent; Sanctuary by Garry Disher; The Examiner by Janice Hallett; Sounds Like a Plan by Pamela Samuels Young and Dwayne Alexander Smith
The curious incident of the author who couldn’t read or write: Mark Haddon on long Covid and overcoming five years of brain fog
A heart bypass in 2019 followed by a Covid infection left the novelist unable to read a book, let alone write one. Five years on, he recalls the steps that have helped him back on the right path
The Life Impossible by Matt Haig review – a journey of rediscovery
A woman acquires supernatural abilities on Ibiza in this follow-up to The Midnight Library
Jill Robinson obituary
Writer who drew on her Hollywood childhood for her successful memoirs and novels
Wife by Charlotte Mendelson review – married to a monster
There are flashes of sharp wit in this furious tale of a toxic relationship between two women, but mostly it roils with raw pain
Joan Brady obituary
Author of Theory of War, inspired by her grandfather’s experience of slavery in the US, which won the Whitbread book of the year award in 1993
Phantom Limb by Chris Kohler review – an unusual debut
This tale of cynicism and miracles in remote Scotland offers a bleakly funny vision of life