State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny review – politics and patriotism
The former US secretary of state’s first novel settles a few scores in an efficiently suspenseful, thoughtful thriller
‘Solved’: the mystery of the ‘slut’ scrawled on The Grapes of Wrath manuscript
Swedish academics think they can explain why the derogatory term appears at the end of Steinbeck’s text
In brief: The Bach Cello Suites; The Book of Mother; Reality and Other Stories
Steven Isserlis gives his take on a musical masterwork, Violaine Huisman dramatises an intense daughterhood and John Lanchester evokes the ghost in our machines
The Impossible Truths of Love by Hannah Beckerman review – secrets and lies
A woman seeks to understand her father’s mysterious last words in a nicely observed novel that keeps the reader guessing till the end
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki review – the story of Oh
Addressing everything from global heating to mental illness, the A Tale for the Time Being author’s latest is big, bold – and narrated by a book
The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard review – a beguiling shaggy dog story
The appearance of a large star triggers a series of bizarre events in a strange, frequently absorbing exploration of what happens after death
Sunday with Joanne Harris: ‘Two breakfasts, hobbit-style’
The author tells Samantha Rea about a pleasant day drinking tea, talking and reading, maybe watching an episode of Inspector Montalbano
Nadifa Mohamed: ‘Modern-day Britain is intense’
The Somali-born writer talks about her Booker-shortlisted novel and ‘broken hearts syndrome’
The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine review – beyond empathy
A beautiful and enraging novel about a trans doctor’s attempts to help Syrian refugees
‘I turned against Keisha the Sket for a long time’: Jade LB on returning to her noughties viral story
The author was just 13 when her anonymous tales of a London teenager spread across the UK. More than a decade on, Stormzy’s Merky books imprint is bringing Keisha back
The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup
Far From the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson; The Cabinet by Un-su Kim; Femlandia by Christina Dalcher; When Things Get Dark edited by Ellen Datlow; The Workshop of Filthy Creation by Richard Gadz
Mary Beard: ‘Virgil was a radical rap artist of the first century BC’
The classics professor and author on being inspired by Mary Douglas and terrified by Beatrix Potter
Burntcoat by Sarah Hall review – love under lockdown
A sculptor considers the meaning of art, sex and disaster, in this masterfully achieved miniature epic set against a deadly virus
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow review – butchered plotting, bloodless horror
A scrambled script and an over-reliance on dry ice leave this version of Sleepy Hollow tired and empty
Wild Abandon by Emily Bitto – a thrilling, irreverent take on the great American road trip
Like the Great Gatsby – but less romantic and more woke – Wild Abandon follows a lonely outsider finding his place in a late-capitalism world