Country People by Daniel Mason review – a joyful follow-up to North Woods
This fantastical journey through family, folktales and a world beneath our feet is witty, uplifting and gorgeously written
‘It’s more than just fairy smut’: Inside the UK’s first romantasy bookshop
Between enemies-to-lovers and ‘shadow daddies’, BookTok has fallen in love with the spicy stories combining romance and fantasy. But there is more to the subgenre than sex, say the fans who queued for hours outside the brick-and-mortar Oxford store
Contrapposto by Dave Eggers review – this portrait of an artist falls flat
The story of a lifelong friendship between two art-world mavericks from the working-class midwest is disappointingly pious
Susanna Clarke: ‘I had been ill for 11 years. I felt like I was about to fall off the world’
One hundred years after Virginia Woolf explored the limitations of language in On Being Ill, the Piranesi author reflects on the power of storytelling to shape our experience of sickness
How AI is changing language
As allegations of LLM use rock the literary and media worlds, linguists explain what really distinguishes human and machine writing, while novelists including Jennifer Egan and Jeanette Winterson reflect on the future of fiction in an age of ChatGPT
The Guardian view on how culture is taking on tech: the ultimate handheld device
Editorial: Transcription, the winner of the Orwell prize for political fiction, and Toy Story 5 show life before smartphones and screen time
Best Australian books out in July: Rupert Murdoch, unhinged short stories and a psychosexual thriller
Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on
The End of Romance by Maria Takolander – a bleak, bold and urgent novel for our times
A mother and son scavenge and pillage in a violent post-apocalyptic world, in the poet and short story writer’s tense and engrossing debut
Honey by Imani Thompson audiobook review – a darkly entertaining campus thriller
Racial and gender politics are woven into a clever tale of murder and morals at Cambridge
Long Wave by Daisy Johnson review – a sublime novel of motherhood and loss
Covering three generations, this tangled story of secrets, childhood, abandonment and care might be her best work yet
Queenie Is Working On It by Candice Carty-Williams review – a smart sequel to a breakout bestseller
Queenie’s ticking biological clock drives her chaotic misadventures in this sage and funny follow-up
No God But Us by Bobuq Sayed review – a buzzy and political queer love story
Two gay Afghan men find each other in Istanbul, in a much-hyped debut that fails to sustain the killer energy of its opening act
I had fallen out of love with fiction. Now I’m back in its arms – and relishing every minute
Novels were starting to seem like a thing of the past for me, until I found a book I couldn’t put down. Is there anything better, asks Zoe Williams
Raveheart by Graeme Armstrong review – ravers rebel in a Scottish political satire
A veteran techno DJ embarks on a campaign of civil disobedience in this passionate and at times hilarious tale of underground resistance
Father Alberto and the Flying Girl by Timothy X Atack review – a fable of medieval madness
A parish priest cares for the mentally afflicted in an absorbing tale that combines antic comedy with serious moral themes