Spent by Alison Bechdel review – the graphic novelist faces up to midlife

In this playfully fictionalised memoir, Alison runs a pygmy goat sanctuary while making a name for herself on stage and screen

Ripeness by Sarah Moss – a beautifully written novel of place and identity

An English woman’s tale of migration, alternating between mid-60s Italy and present-day Ireland, considers family heritage and the treatment of refugees

The Empress Murders by Toby Schmitz review – jazz age mystery packed with corpses and charisma

The actor’s first novel, set on (and sometimes narrated by) a luxury boat in 1925, swerves from cosy Christie homage into something far more brutal

American Dirt author Jeanine Cummins: ‘I didn’t need to justify my right to write that book’

Five years after being vilified for exploiting the migrant experience in her bestseller, the author reveals how the backlash inspired her latest novel

‘My legal work sows the seeds of my stories’: International Booker prize winner Banu Mushtaq

The author and activist, who was subject to a fatwa in 2000, has won the prestigious prize for translated fiction with her translator Deepa Bhasthi for her collection of short stories about the lives of Muslim women. They explain why Heart Lamp’s themes ‘are universal’

Andrew Hunter Murray: ‘Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I find more jokes’

The author and podcaster on taking inspiration from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, welling up to Charles Dickens, and the enduring appeal of Jane Austen

Michelle de Kretser wins Stella prize for book that ‘expands our notions of what a novel can be’

The two-time Miles Franklin winner adds the $60,000 prize for women and nonbinary writers to her accolades, for a novel that troubles the line between fiction and memoir

The Boys by Leo Robson review – a likable debut with aimless charm

The critic turned author’s witty, eccentric novel follows a Londoner reading Susan Sontag and looking for love

Awkward clapping, no-sand beaches and Alexander Skarsgård’s thigh-high boots: a trip to Cannes to see my film

Harry Lighton’s film Pillion is based on the novel Box Hill so, misgivings riding alongside, it felt right for the author to motorbike to the film festival for its premiere

Nightingale by Laura Elvery review – Florence Nightingale inspires a luminous historical novel

Elvery’s prose is both sensual and brutal in this richly imagined account of war, memory and the life of history’s most famous nurse

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn audiobook review – a life-changing journey

Facing homelessness and incurable illness, a couple sets out on a 630-mile hike in this lyrical memoir read by the author

The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey review – this dystopia could have been extraordinary

Alternate political realities are compellingly explored in this sinister vision of a children’s home – but the echoes of Ishiguro are just too strong

‘Radical translation’ of Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq wins International Booker prize

Translator Deepa Bhasthi’s pick of 12 of Mushtaq’s ‘life-affirming’ tales about women’s lives in southern India becomes the first short story collection to win the £50,000 award

Albion by Anna Hope review – Succession-style infighting

The funeral of an English aristocrat sets the scene for a battle over inheritance, in an ambitious tale of empire and historical privilege

Margaret Atwood’s 10 best books – ranked!

Ahead of the author’s much anticipated memoir, we count down the best of her books – from climate dystopias to her world-conquering handmaids