Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare obituary

Bestselling author and Conservative politician whose scandal-ridden career ended with a prison sentence

Partita By Barbara Kingsolver review – a midlife follow-up to Demon Copperhead

The sex writing threatens to throw the novel off-kilter, but there are rich rewards in this tale of music and middle-aged compromises

The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain review – a bloodless origin story for Du Maurier’s Rebecca

The novelist has expanded her devastating 2014 short story about an imagined affair between Daphne du Maurier and a fictional Polish-Jewish housekeeper

Best Australian books out in October: Magda Szubanski, delicious recipes and a picture book ‘masterpiece’

Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on

John Cooper Clarke looks back: ‘Getting older sucks – it’s marginally better than being dead’

The punk poet on his heroin years, dressing like Ronnie Wood, and achieving his boyhood ambition

‘I thought, if I’m going to die, I’m going to write a book first’: Pachinko author Min Jin Lee

Her last novel sold 5m copies and was adapted into a hit series. Nearly 10 years on, the Korean-American author has written another epic. She discusses ambition and the diagnosis that inspired her to leave work and write

Shaun Tan: ‘We’re always only seeing a thin skin of reality’

One of Australia’s most cherished and awarded picture book illustrators on what makes a good painting, the mechanics of life and the fine line between utopia and dystopia

Murder Before Evensong review – the Rev Richard Coles’s village mystery squeezes into cosy theatre

Ian Hallard impresses in a thoughtful adaptation that sometimes strains under a villageful of suspects, victims and doubling actors

The Long Cloud by Hector MacKenzie review – there’s only so much depth to a himbo

This wry debut novel about a male model’s inner life, written in lowercase fragments, has tender insights but isn’t as profound as it aims to be

What we’re reading: China Miéville, Sebastian Barry, Derek Owusu and Guardian readers on the books they enjoyed in September

Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

‘I will see you in the parking lot after this’: when book clubs get dramatic

Book clubs can be fun, fulfilling and interesting – but many members have seen a meeting or group go down in flames

Dodge City by Patrick deWitt review – a wild draft-dodging road trip

This tale of a 60s college dropout driving across the US to avoid being sent to Vietnam is committed to both readerly pleasure and literary artifice

Missouri Williams and China Miéville among writers on ‘adventurous’ Goldsmiths shortlist

Six writers are in contention for the £10,000 books prize, which celebrates fiction that ‘breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form’

Dèy by Edwidge Danticat review – motherhood and trauma in Miami

The first novel in over a decade from the acclaimed Haitian-American author lacks the power of earlier works

Cherise Saywell wins national short story award for ‘tender’ tale of a child facing violence – read an extract here

The Edinburgh-based writer takes £15,000 prize for Ditto, a ‘beautifully told’ story about domestic abuse in a small Australian town