Claire Keegan wins Orwell prize for novel about 1980s Ireland
Small Things Like These takes the political fiction award, while Sally Hayden’s My Fourth Time, We Drowned takes the matching nonfiction honour
Dark Earth by Rebecca Stott review – Anglo-Saxon adventures
Two sisters make their way through a ruined Londinium in this lyrical tale set in AD500
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman review – a cerebral eco-thriller
This grief-stricken yet very funny tale about the search for an endangered fish speaks to our age of mass extinctions
Top 10 books about twins
Writers from William Shakespeare to Angela Carter and George RR Martin have been been inspired by the doubled lives of these familial pairs
The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn review – a grand debut of cosy delights
The country set confront the realities of the second world war in this sweeping historical epic
Where the Crawdads Sing review – hit novel crashes on the big screen
The Reese Witherspoon-produced adaptation of the best-seller remains faithful to the fantasies of the book, for better and mostly for worse
Booker prize unveils book club challenge
Six groups will be chosen to read a shortlisted book, with the most ‘original and engaging’ readers to be invited to the prize ceremony
Kwame Alexander to present new reality show America’s Next Great Author
Contestants will enter a writers’ retreat and be given 30 days to write a novel while completing ‘live-wire’ challenges
Frederick Nolan obituary
Thriller writer and publisher who became an authority on the American old west and Billy the Kid
The best recent crime and thriller writing – review roundup
The tensions of a small community inspire a couple of ‘island noir’ crackers, while three female authors explore revenge
All Walls Collapse, edited by Sarah Cleave and Will Forrester review – stories of separation
This anthology of short stories for writers’ association English PEN is packed with poignant and moving tales from around the world
In brief: The Wrath to Come; Briefly, A Delicious Life; This Much Is True – reviews
Sarah Churchwell’s cultural history reassesses Gone With the Wind, Nell Stevens’s first novel impresses and Miriam Margolyes’s memoir fascinates
Mick Herron: ‘I’m interested in incompetence, things going wrong’
The Slow Horses author on the ‘virtue of limitations’ and drawing life lessons from The Wind in the Willows
The best recent science fiction and fantasy – review roundup
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch; The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings; Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata and Old Country by Matt and Harrison Query
Sadie Jones: ‘As a teenager I thought Jilly Cooper’s novels beneath contempt’
The author on dreams of Narnia, the joy of Cold Comfort Farm, and finally finishing War and Peace after an 18-year break