Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen audiobook review – an immersive all-star dramatisation

Actors Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Bill Nighy and Marisa Abela are among the cast in a pacy adaptation that retains Austen’s sharp plotting and comic precision

Seed by Bri Lee – this propulsive, fun eco-thriller is the novelist’s strongest yet

Set in a secret Antarctic seed bank, Seed is a novel of friction and paranoia, of weaponised mistrust and cloistered desire, narrated by a misogynist antinatalist

Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation review – revisiting the legacy of a counterculture classic

Wild-spirited but laced with dim views on race and women, On the Road is due a reckoning. This elegant talking-head doc works best when its unpicking is most forensic

‘A sparkle that extends beyond fiction’: readers on what Jilly Cooper meant to them

Fans pay tribute to the author’s escapist tales, her real-life largesse and her unexpected passions

Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard to chair Women’s prize for fiction in 2026

Gillard reveals reading fiction is her most treasured pastime and looks forward to working with ‘a joyful panel of judges’

Ivan Klíma obituary

Czech novelist and playwright whose work was banned under communism

The Decadence by Leon Craig review – queer haunted house tale fails to chill

Privileged university friends retreat to the countryside, in a gothic novel mostly made up of vibes

The Devil Book by Asta Olivia Nordenhof review – a Danish series that burns with purpose

This incandescent novel takes in lockdown, the devil, bad investments, erotic thrills and the deadly fire on the Scandinavian Star ferry

‘Jilly Cooper was the absolute queen’: writers pay tribute to the beloved author

The writer was an astute observer of English class – and a champion of complicated female heroines

Elizabeth Harrower wrote some of Australia’s best novels then disappeared for decades. Even she wasn’t sure why

A new biography unravels one of Australia’s great literary mysteries and comeback stories, and teases out details of the troubled early years that informed the author’s devastating studies of domestic despots

Dame Jilly Cooper obituary

Author whose bestselling novels, including Riders and Rivals, were set deep in an English countryside where the natives pursued land, sports, and each other, with lust and gusto

The Elements by John Boyne review – intertwined tales of trauma

Four novellas about damaged people weighed down by the crimes they have suffered draw you efficiently in, but the cumulative effect is numbing

Trent Dalton, Bri Lee and Melissa Leong’s ‘raw’ memoir: the best Australian books out in October

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

Gravity Let Me Go by Trent Dalton review – ocker crime caper plagued by more than a beleaguered ballsack

The bestseller’s fourth novel could have tackled timely questions about true crime – but instead it offers a bleakly retrograde fable about being a good bloke

One of Us by Elizabeth Day review – the inner lives of Tory MPs

Driven by a whodunnit-ish plot, this state-of-the-nation sequel to The Party features a family at the centre of British political life