Susan Choi: ‘For so long I associated Dickens with unbearable Christmas TV specials’
The Booker-shortlisted novelist on the seismic effect of Sigrid Nunez, and wanting to write like Virginia Woolf
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash review – clever comedy for our conspiracy theory age
This tender satire of a dysfunctional American family’s search for moral guidance is precisely what our times need
The Puma by Daniel Wiles review – a visceral tale of cyclical violence
A father and son move to the Patagonian woods – but intensity wanes when a search for home becomes an obsessive quest for revenge
Glyph by Ali Smith review – bearing witness to the war in Gaza
This second novel in a sharp duology offers a powerful interrogation of language in the age of mechanical mass destruction
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar review – survival in a climate-ravaged Kolkata
This moral thriller offers a perceptive account of specifically Indian anxieties
Green Dot author Madeleine Gray: ‘Chosen family is big in the queer community’
Madeleine Gray has followed her hit debut with a sharp take on complicated parenting. She discusses love, sex and famous fans
Children and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels
Caring canines; daring donuts; a golden monkey; a boy from another planet; a dark take on Little Women and more
May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry review – a dazzling puzzle-box of a debut
The plight of a reluctant medieval king is glimpsed through scattered pieces of the past, in an ingenious novel that asks how much we can really know about history
Workhorse by Caroline Palmer review – a Devil Wears Prada-style tale of ambition
Dark obsessions drive this debut about the golden era of magazines – but its vile and hilarious heroine is not someone you want to spend so much time with
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood review – getting through the day
Alex Jennings’s performance hums with buried rage in Christopher Isherwood’s landmark exploration of grief
Vigil by George Saunders review – will a world-wrecking oil tycoon repent?
The ghosts of Lincoln in the Bardo return to confront a dying oil man’s destructive legacy – but this time they feel like a gimmick
‘I could never hope to equal it again’: Jeffrey Archer announces next novel will be his last
The 85-year-old bestselling author’s final novel, Adam and Eve, will be published in English in October
Cameo by Rob Doyle review – a fantasy of literary celebrity in the culture war era
In this larky autofiction, the ups and downs of creative life are cartoonishly dramatised as the writer becomes an action hero
Sex, death and parrots: Julian Barnes’s best fiction – ranked!
As the Booker prize-winning author prepares to publish his final novel at 80, we assess his finest work
Departure(s) by Julian Barnes review – this final novel is a slippery affair
Memoir merges with fiction as the author reflects on failed love, ageing and the end of life in this last instalment to his writing career