In brief: Bad Nature; Bad Friend; The Flitting – review

An impelling US road-trip for our times; an enlightening cultural history of female friendships; and a bond forged over butterflies for a son and his dying father

Novelist Oisín Fagan: ‘I was at the altar of literature and had its fire in me’

The Irish author on his new ‘violent seafaring epic’, his appetite for body horror and living his entire life book-first

‘The law is another form of storytelling’: Philippe Sands in conversation with Juan Gabriel Vásquez

When Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998, lawyer Philippe Sands was part of the prosecution. As his book about the case comes out, he talks to the Colombian novelist about literature and justice

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown review – you’ll read nothing else like it this year

This exhilarating debut about working-class girls growing up in the hope-starved atmosphere of a small northern English city feels essential

‘Blood-pumping’, ‘outstanding’, ‘urgent and essential’: the best Australian books out in April

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

Anthony Horowitz: ‘I’m too nervous to reread The Lord of the Rings – it might reveal how jaded I’ve become’

The Alex Rider author on being put off Dickens for a decade, why he reads poetry in the mornings, and how reading Sherlock Holmes made him want to be a crime writer

Orpheus Nine by Chris Flynn review – this unsettling novel is utterly compelling

In his fourth novel, the author leans into dark and surreal territory, focusing on a small Australian town during a mysterious global catastrophe

NaNoWriMo showed me I could knuckle down and write a book – and though it’s closing, I hope the idea behind it lives on

I won’t be showing off the results of the novel I wrote in a month, but the nonprofit’s community-backed challenge is worthwhile and should continue

Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo review – a gender-swapped Moby-Dick

A runaway orphan from coastal Kent is the protagonist in this tightly plotted reimagining of Herman Melville’s whaling classic

The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits review – a quietly brilliant midlife roadtrip

Once your kids are at university, what’s next for you? This compelling depiction of life at a crossroads is a male counterpart to Miranda July’s All Fours

Scandal-hit creative writing website NaNoWriMo to close after 20 years

The US nonprofit, whose online community encouraged members to write a novel in a month, has been rocked by controversy in recent years

The Strange Case of Jane O by Karen Thompson Walker review – an impossible tale

A New York librarian is discovered unconscious in a park with no memory, in a mystery that challenges consensual reality

Miranda July and Elizabeth Strout shortlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction

American authors of All Fours and Tell Me Everything are competing for the 30th award alongside four other novels highlighting ‘the importance of human connection’

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in March

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

Gatsby by Jane Crowther; The Gatsby Gambit by Claire Anderson-Wheeler – Jay’s eternal hold

Two enjoyable debut novels put fresh meat on Fitzgerald’s deathless classic – one a modern-day retelling in which Gatsby becomes a female influencer, another a pacy murder mystery in the vein of Agatha Christie