In brief: Love & Deception: Philby in Beirut; The Tale of the Tailor and the Three Dead Kings; Ghosts of the West – reviews

A fresh take on the Kim Philby saga, a chilling retelling of a medieval tale and the third of Alec Marsh’s colourful mysteries

The Survivors by Alex Schulman review – bloody family reunion

The Swedish writer’s international debut novel uses a tricksy narrative structure to tackle the meeting of three brothers driven apart by tragedy

‘My intimacy with Simone de Beauvoir was unique… it was love’

As an autobiographical novel by the writer is published for the first time in English, her adopted daughter Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir talks about their bond

Akala, Bernardine Evaristo, Ben Okri and more pick 20 classic books by writers of colour

Twenty contemporary writers recommend overlooked novels, essays and poetry that deserve to sit alongside the classics on our bookshelves

Paul Auster: ‘It’s distress that generates art’

The novelist on his latest work, an 800-page tribute to the American author Stephen Crane, and why the greatest writers are monomaniacs

Stephen Fry on the enduring appeal of Georgette Heyer

As the Folio Society publishes a new edition of Venetia, the actor and broadcaster reflects on what makes an excellent Regency romance

One in five shortlisted authors for top UK literary prizes in 2020 were black

Racial diversity has gradually increased, after no black authors were shortlisted in four of the years between 1996 and 2009

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke audiobook review – narrator Chiwetel Ejiofor takes flight

A mysterious building containing sea, clouds and wildlife is the setting for this intense and enigmatic tale read by the Hollywood actor – plus this week’s other picks

The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgård review – bloated and inconsequential

His fondness for pulverising detail has always been divisive; here it fatally undermines his return to the novel

Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down review – remarkably empathetic tale of vulnerability

Down’s second novel solicits the kind of emotional investment in her protagonist that books like A Little Life or Shuggie Bain lobbied for

Magpie by Elizabeth Day review – a clever thriller about baby hunger

Marisa moves into a seemingly perfect house with a seemingly perfect man – but a surprise is in store

Palmares by Gayl Jones review – a long-awaited vision of freedom

Set in 17th-century Brazil, this wild and winding epic about a community of Africans who have escaped slavery is a revelation

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen review – a fine start to a family trilogy

This simmering 70s-set domestic drama is warm, expansive and funny – a pure pleasure to read

Author Emily Bitto: ‘England is not the cultural centre for Australians any more’

Stella Prize winner’s new novel with its Tiger King-style setting in rural Ohio is an exploration of hedonism in the face of capitalist decline

How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram X Kendi awarded MacArthur ‘genius grant’

Writers Daniel Alarcón and Reginald Dwayne Betts have also been named on the list of 25 new fellows to receive $625,000 from the foundation