From V to Vineland and Inherent Vice: Thomas Pynchon’s books – ranked!
With fans eagerly awaiting the reclusive author’s first book in more than a decade, the noir caper Shadow Ticket, we assess his best fiction of the past 60 years
The Expansion Project by Ben Pester review – surreal workplace satire
A father searches for his missing daughter at a business park, only to become a living ghost in a corporate nightmare
Blue sky thinking: why we need positive climate novels
Environmental fiction is booming – but can it move beyond dystopia to a brighter vision of the future?
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
A Particularly Nasty Case by Adam Kay; Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman; The Final Vow by MW Craven; The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine
In the Green Heart by Richard Lloyd Parry review – neocolonial jungle fever
An intensely political story of a new father’s escape with his baby through a rainforest during wartime
John Boyne says LGBTQ+ fiction prize backlash brought him ‘close to the edge’
Gender-critical novelist urges writers to re-enter prize they boycotted and may ask judges not to shortlist his novella
Yorùbá Boy Running by Biyi Bándélé audiobook review – from enslaved teenager to celebrated preacher
The novelist’s final work tells a remarkable tale of resilience, based on the life of Samuel Àjàyí Crowther, who was kidnapped by slavers but won his freedom
Katabasis by RF Kuang review – a descent into the hellscape of academia
The bestselling author’s sixth novel is far from perfect, but this journey into the underworld is delivered with heretical glee
The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar review – whimsical fantasy in a kingdom long, long ago
In this first adult novel from the acclaimed children’s author, an immortal magician returns to tell the story of a royal court where he cast his spells some 500 years before
Where to start with: John Burnside
Seán Hewitt, who introduces a new edition of the Scottish author’s final memoir, guides readers through his landmark works a year on from his death
The Adversary by Michael Crummey review – dark humour and depravity at the edge of the Earth
This prize-winning take on a biblical tale set in 1800s Newfoundland is grim, but has energy, empathy – and a wickedly colourful way with words
Peter Carey on Ned Kelly: ‘Did no one see what I saw, that our famous bushranger was a raging poet?’
Twenty-five years after his award-winning book was published, the Australian author revisits True History of the Kelly Gang
The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup
Where the Axe Is Buried by Ray Nayler; The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King; Hemlock & Silver by T Kingfisher; Secret Lives of the Dead by Tim Lebbon; The Course of the Heart by M John Harrison
Learned Behaviours by Zeynab Gamieldien review – murder mystery probes privilege and class politics
An ascendant lawyer from western Sydney is pulled back into his past in this pacy thriller interrogating the possibilities – and traps – of social mobility
The Names by Florence Knapp audiobook review – a Sliding Doors-style debut
What happens to a boy called Gordon, Julian or Bear? Irish actor Dervla Kirwan narrates this smart tale about a how a boy’s name influences his life