Miles Allinson on writing about cults: ‘People really balk about discussions of spirituality’
The Melbourne author’s second novel, In Moonland, taps into the mysteries that haunt us
In brief: The Man Who Died Twice; Aesop’s Animals; Breathtaking – reviews
Richard Osman’s second novel doesn’t disappoint. Plus, the science behind Aesop’s fables and on the Covid frontline with Dr Rachel Clarke
An Island by Karen Jennings review – stranger on the shore
Longlisted for the Booker prize, Jennings’s tale of a lighthouse keeper and an uninvited guest grapples with colonialism and the plight of refugees
The Making of Incarnation by Tom McCarthy review – all work and no play
Time-and-motion studies meets motion-capture acrobatics in a hi-tech saga that’s big on detail but devoid of insight
Ferdinand Mount: ‘You couldn’t not be frightened of Margaret Thatcher!’
The literary editor and novelist on his timely novel exploring the dark arts of the political class
Lauren Groff: ‘I often get very lonely because my job is very lonely’
The author of Fates and Furies on being endorsed by Barack Obama, the climate crisis and discovering medieval humour for a new novel about 12th-century poet Marie de France
Susanna Clarke: ‘I’d really ceased to think of myself as a writer’
The author on how the celebration of solitude in her Women’s prize-winning new novel, Piranesi, grew from her experience of a long illness
Freight Dogs by Giles Foden review – surviving Africa’s world war
A teenager’s life is shattered by conflict in this ambitious novel tethered to real-life events
The best recent fantasy, horror and science fiction – review roundup
Dare to Know by James Kennedy; Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; The Black Locomotive by Rian Hughes; Five Minds by Guy Morpuss; and AI 2041: Ten Visions for our Future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan
Why translators should be named on book covers
Publishers avoid highlighting the people who choose every word of the books they bring to English readers. This lack of transparency is misguided and unfair
The Liquid Land review – a memorable Austrian allegory
A town is being sucked down a vast hole in Raphaela Edelbauer’s subtle, whimsical debut about historical memory
Matrix by Lauren Groff review – a brilliant nun’s tale
Visionary leader, queer lover, 12th-century writer … the life of Marie de France is triumphantly reimagined in an assertively modern novel about female ambition and creativity
From Boudicca to modern Britain: the dream of island utopias, ruled by women
Once the British Isles were seen as a stronghold of female leadership. Patriarchal culture pushed these stories to the geographical margins – yet they live on, a force too potent to ignore
Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi is a triumphantly unusual Women’s prize winner
Taking on uncanny relevance this year, this austere story of one man’s isolation explores profound questions of freedom
Women’s prize for fiction goes to Susanna Clarke’s ‘mind-bending’ Piranesi
Clarke’s follow-up to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was praised by judges as ‘a truly original, unexpected flight of fancy’