From Booker-listed Marlon James to a memoir by Michael Douglas – the biggest books this autumn

Midlife meditations from Barbara Kingsolver; musical portraits by Jonathan Coe and Yiyun Li; plus memoirs from Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench – all among the coming season’s highlights

The best recent translated fiction – review roundup

The Red Book of Farewells by Pirkko Saisio; Short Circuit by Wolf Haas; Cosmos by Lucia Odoom; The Fallen Trees Are Also the Forest

Life of M by Rachel Cusk review – is this story of a film star based on Natalie Portman?

A teasing tale of the friendship between a writer and an actor explores the fallout from fame, and the blurring between pretence and reality

Blue Giant by Jordan Prosser review – would life be better on Mars?

Melancholy and humour pierce Prosser’s second novel, which swings in zany directions as its fabulous central character tries to escape the shitshows of 21st-century life

Melancholy made in Hungary is fuelling bestsellers across the globe – and widely misunderstood

A ‘capacity for despair’ forged by political oppression has long been consider a Magyar national trait. But after Orbán, writers in the country remind us that melancholy must not always be bleak

Where Are the Kings by Donal Ryan review – a timeless tale of family sorrows and joys

A teenage boy navigates adolescence and the traumatic loss of his mother in this poignant coming-of-age novel set in rural Ireland

Sunrise by Téa Obreht review – secrets and myths in the American west

Set across three interwoven timelines, this absorbing tale of an abandoned mining town explores courage, cowardice and how history is recorded

The Ego Trip by Kimon de Greef review – a bizarre tale of psychedelic toads and hair-raising treatments

A journalist investigates the unsettling world of a charismatic shaman and the people who trusted him

Agrippa by Robert Harris review – persuasive portrait of rivalry in ancient Rome

This fictional memoir by Octavius’s right-hand man shows us bloodshed, betrayal and hectic jockeying for power

‘It is not only a future certainty – the disaster is already here’: why we need climate fiction

As wildfires rage across Europe and Britain swelters through its hottest summer on record, literary fiction has a vital role to play in capturing the severe consequences of climate crisis

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian; Claws Out! by Bella Mackie; Plant Lady by Minyoung Kang; Children of Wolves by Lawrence Osborne; Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

Mine by Adam Ouston review – novel told in a single sentence is a hallucinatory reading experience

Ouston’s second novel follows a poet who is trapped in an abandoned mine in Tasmania while searching for inspiration for his ‘last great work’

Universality by Natasha Brown audiobook review – a sparkling multi-voiced satire

A magazine article about stolen gold sparks a culture war between a cast of politically polarised characters

Can Nothing Save Us? by Irvine Welsh review – US family saga is a late-career triumph

The Scottish author focuses on gun culture and generational conflict in this darkly satirical tale about a great power in decline

EJ Swift wins the 2026 Arthur C Clarke award for science fiction

The writer – who was also shortlisted in 2023 – has won the prize for her book When There Are Wolves Again, a speculative work of eco-fiction set in near-future Britain