All My Precious Madness by Mark Bowles review – a deliciously sweary, prize-winning monologue
The actor Paul Hilton brilliantly inhabits the character of a ranting working-class academic in this debut novel
Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray review – a vibrant ode to best friends and queer loves
The author of Green Dot returns with a masterful tale of unconventional friendship and family
The five best romance books of 2025
A tricky age gap, a dose of wedding day drama, literary love affairs, office rivals and the sexy side of Brexit
Marina Lewycka posthumously named ‘winner of winners’ of Wodehouse prize for comic fiction
The British-Ukrainian writer, who died last month, won the prize’s 25th-anniversary Vintage Bollinger award for 2005 novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, while Rosanna Pike took this year’s prize for A Little Trickerie
Ms Holmes and Ms Watson – Apt 2B review: mysterious case of the joke-cracking Sherlock
This riff on Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective stories has flashes of promise but its comedy and purpose never land
The best crime and thrillers of 2025
Mick Herron’s Slow Horses, Belinda Bauer’s obsessive world of bird egg collectors, Uketsu’s innovative Japanese detective mystery – and more
Five of the best translated fiction of 2025
The return of Nobel laureate Han Kang; film-making under the Nazis; stuck in a time loop; Scandinavian thrills; and essential stories from postwar Iraq
‘I took literary revenge against the people who stole my youth’: Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu
As the first part of his acclaimed Blinding trilogy is released in the UK, the novelist talks about communism, Vladimir Nabokov – and those Nobel rumours
The best recent translated fiction – review roundup
The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten; Woman in the Pillory by Brigitte Reimann; Iran+100, edited by various; Sea Now by Eva Meijer
Bog People: A Working-Class Anthology of Folk Horror review – dark tales with a sting
This collection of macabre stories set across England explores class, hierarchy and the enduring nature of inequality
A Particularly Nasty Case by Adam Kay audiobook review – a wayward doctor turns detective
Andy Serkis revels in his narration of the first murder mystery from the author of This Is Going to Hurt, which showcases Kay’s signature pitch-black humour
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy review – flimsy extravaganza needs deeper thought
The madcap sci-fi tale is retold on a lavish scale, complete with in-show merch, but it never really blasts off
The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly review – horror, humanity and Dr Asperger
The reader grapples with fascism and complicity through the eyes of a mute autistic girl being treated during the second world war
£15,000 prize launched for writers from refugee and migrant backgrounds
The Footnote x Counterpoints prize is intended to uncover new literary voices whose work reflects the experiences of migration
The Artist by Lucy Steeds wins Waterstones book of the year
The debut novel took the top prize while The Café at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please was named children’s book of the year