Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser review – shame, desire and the ghost of Virginia Woolf

A vivid outback tale, an anguished 80s love triangle and real life are cleverly held in play in the Australian novelist’s inventive memoir-novel-essay hybrid

The Violet Hour by James Cahill review – soapy and satisfying art-world yarn

Artists, gallerists and collectors vie for power in a rollicking mystery that pokes fun while also examining desire and regret

Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld review – sharp stories about the pleasure and pain of nostalgia

In the American writer’s wry, understated second short story collection, the past comes back to jolt her largely middle-aged characters

Writer Percival Everett: ‘Deciding to write a book is like knowingly entering a bad marriage’

The American novelist on James, his Booker-shortlisted retelling of Huckleberry Finn, working with Steven Spielberg and the silliness of the Oscars

The Kings Head by Kelly Frost review – jocular story of street-fighting sisters

The journalist’s debut novel about a London girl gang of the 1950s expertly toys with gender and explores young people’s place in the world

Writer David Szalay: ‘We live in an era of short attention spans – we have to work with it the best we can’

The Hungarian-English author on addressing what it’s like to be a male body in the world, learning the tricks of literature from Frederick Forsyth, and the feeling of nearly winning the Booker

‘The essential ingredient is openness’: Curtis Sittenfeld on the deep joy of midlife friendship

Friendships become closer and more fulfilling as you get older argues the novelist, because by the time you reach middle age everyone has faced dramatic challenges, disappointments and sorrows – and being honest about them is a powerful point of bonding

Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis review – witty debut about Islamic State brides

A young academic travels to Iraq to help a British Asian who joined IS at 15, in this rollicking account of a UN deradicalisation programme

The Knowing by Madeleine Ryan review – intriguing ‘phone-free’ premise falters in execution

The author’s sophomore novel, in which a young woman is propelled on a journey of self-discovery after accidentally leaving her mobile at home, asks interesting questions but pulls its punches

The Café With No Name by Robert Seethaler review – lost souls in postwar Vienna

A slice-of-life portrait of a community suffering the after-effects of the second world war

Beartooth by Callan Wink review – an expansive drama of survival

Family relationships are explored in this finely executed tale of two brothers drawn into bear poaching in rural Montana

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor review – an SF master moves into the mainstream

This book within a book weaves a writer’s struggles with scenes from their Africanfuturist tale of post-apocalyptic robots

The Violet Hour by James Cahill review – art, secrets and lies

The Tiepolo Blue author’s impressive second novel is an enthrallingly intricate portrait of the art world

Crime and thrillers of the month – review

The scorned woman thriller deftly reimagined, preposterously gripping murders at an ice skating training camp - and a frantic search for a missing daughter

Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell review – a dread-stoking domestic abuse drama

O’Donnell brings the spare intensity of her award-winning short stories to her first novel, a compulsive tale of one woman’s escape intensified by Dublin’s housing crisis