A Danish Groundhog Day or tales of millennial angst… What should win this year’s International Booker?

A headspinning novel from Japan alongside a high concept tale from Denmark, and a French account of migrant tragedy … our critic weighs up the contenders

The Guardian view on the Moomins at 80: in search of a home

Editorial: Tove Jansson’s magical stories provide a message of tolerance, inclusivity and hope for today’s refugee crisis

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

Never Flinch by Stephen King; The Sunshine Man by Emma Stonex; Heartwood by Amity Gaige; The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster; The Search for Othella Savage by Foday Mannah

Palestinian author Yasmin Zaher wins Dylan Thomas prize with ‘audacious’ novel The Coin

£20,000 award for writers aged 39 or under goes to story ‘tackling trauma and grief with bold and poetic moments of quirkiness and humour’

I Want Everything by Dominic Amerena review – a delicious tale of literary deception

An ambitious young writer tells a white lie to land a scoop in this dazzling debut interrogating the ethics of writers

Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway audiobook review – a new Smiley from le Carré’s son

Perfectly emulating the tone of his father’s spy novels, this cold war tale also benefits from Simon Russell Beale’s impeccable reading

A New New Me by Helen Oyeyemi review – a fable about self-mythology

This gloriously absurd Prague-set tale, in which one woman is split into seven selves, is a wild ride

Abi Daré wins the inaugural Climate fiction prize

Daré accepted the £10,000 prize for her latest novel, And So I Roar, the follow-up to her bestselling debut The Girl with the Louding Voice

Water in the Desert Fire in the Night by Gethan Dick review – hope at the end of the world

An evocative debut charts the journey of a group of travellers as they seek refuge in the wake of an unstoppable pandemic

‘Eerie gem’ of an unearthed Graham Greene story published in Strand Magazine

A ghost story – unusual subject matter for the late author of political thrillers – features alongside little-known Ian Fleming story

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong review – heartbreak and hope

The follow-up to On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a tale of precarity and connection in smalltown Connecticut

Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth review – a riotous roadtrip

Two sisters reckon with their past selves and the muddles of midlife in a comic tale of secrets, desire and ferocious loyalty

Nevermoor’s Jessica Townsend on frantic fans, her fantasy smash hit – and feeling ‘gutted’ by JK Rowling

The latest book in Townsend’s bestselling children’s series is out amid a surge in anti-trans rhetoric. But she remains committed to making sure her millions of readers all ‘know they have a place in Nevermoor’

Given up on reading? Elif Shafak on why we still need novels

Recent studies suggest we’ve fallen out of love with reading – but the more chaotic our times, the deeper is our need to slow down and read fiction

‘Buddhism and Björk help me handle fame’: novelist Ocean Vuong

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous made him a literary superstar. Now the Vietnamese American author is exploring his working-class roots in an ambitious follow‑up