The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang review – a tasty succession drama
A mysterious death in a small-town family restaurant kickstarts a darkly comic tale of rivalry
Damon Galgut and Colm Tóibín join ‘rich and large’ Rathbones Folio prize shortlist
Galgut’s Booker winner and Tóibín’s fictionalised biography of Thomas Mann are two of eight titles selected by the judges
Top 10 single mothers in fiction
They often get as rough a ride from books as they do from the world, but some writers, from Jane Austen to Sue Townsend, have given lone parents authentic life beyond the cliches
New Animal by Ella Baxter review – bleak comedy of sex and estrangement
A mortuary makeup artist negotiates the landscape of 21st-century sexuality in this sharp debut
Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart review – Chekhov-inspired capers
Old friends escape New York to sit out the pandemic in a Covid satire whose references don’t travel well
In brief: Tell Me How to Be; The Go-Between; Time Song: Searching for Doggerland – review
The poignant struggles of an Indian-American mother and son; an artist’s insightful memoir of multicultural Britain; and ruminations on a lost world
Love Marriage by Monica Ali review – lurid turns and lashings of sex
The novelist is on familiar territory and great form with a tale of premarital tension that punctures family life and feminism
Louise Welsh: ‘It was like driving with the lights off’
The prize-winning author of The Cutting Room on writing its long-awaited follow-up, female victims in crime novels, and the allure of Mrs Danvers
I was shooting coke between chapters of Dostoevsky – but eventually books would save me from addiction
At first, I could hardly get through a novel. But slowly reading – and writing – saved me from a life of drugs, rehab and jail
Marian Keyes: ‘Rehab was one of the happiest times of my life’
As her beloved character Rachel returns, older and sober, the Irish author discusses her own journey from addiction to recovery - and the sexist snobbery that surrounds her work
Love Marriage by Monica Ali review – a culture-clash engagement
An entertaining exploration of multicultural British modernity - love, sex, class, politics, faith and family – from the author of Brick Lane
Munich by Robert Harris audiobook review – inside the backrooms of power
David Rintoul is the authoritative narrator of this thriller about the negotiations between Neville Chamberlain and Hitler in the leadup to the second world war
Violets by Alex Hyde review – a tender meditation on motherhood
This lyrical debut novel examines the transformations of two women in the aftermath of the second world war
Uschi Gatward obituary
Writer whose collection of short stories, English Magic, showed how the apparently mundane could be imbued with significance
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au review – a graceful novella about how we pay attention
Easy conclusions elude in this slender story about a mother and daughter’s trip to Japan