A Kid from Marlboro Road by Edward Burns review – the most Irish-American novel of the year

A 12-year-old New Yorker records his childhood memories and family anecdotes in the film-maker’s vivid and tender first book

All My Precious Madness by Mark Bowles review – poignant meditation on masculinity and alienation

A working-class writer rails against the corporate world and small-mindedness in a striking debut novel written as a monologue

In brief: My Roman Year; Madwoman; Mapping the Darkness – review

A sensuous memoir by the author of Call Me by Your Name; a suspenseful tale about a mother’s trauma-haunted double life; and the science of sleep illuminatingly explored

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney review – is there a better writer at work right now?

With her fourth novel, the Normal People author leans fully into her talent, creating a funny, tender tale of two grieving brothers and their messy love lives that’s utterly perfect

Isabella Hammad: ‘I heard Edward Said speak when I was seven’

One of Granta’s best young novelists on rage, identity politics and the need for precision as well as poetry

On my radar: Yotam Ottolenghi’s cultural highlights

The chef on a novel that triumphantly captures messy London life, a Turkish Netflix drama that shows Istanbul’s split worlds and the app that gets him going in the morning

‘I no longer have to save the world’: Novelist Richard Powers on fiction and the climate crisis

The Pulitzer-winning author of The Overstory on how ocean life inspired his latest novel – and why we need to rewrite our relationship with nature

The Guardian view on the Booker prize shortlist: a cause for celebration

Editorial: The most female finalists in the award’s history. What took it so long?

Five of the best books shaped by lists

From the poptastic Top 10s of High Fidelity to the life-saving work of Oskar Schindler, here are some of the best tabulations in literature

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman; Guide Me Home by Attica Locke; Five By Five by Claire Wilson; The Night of Baba Yaga by Akira Otani; I Died at Fallow Hall by Bonnie Burke-Patel

Pat Barker: ‘When I first read Pride and Prejudice, I hated it’

The author on reimagining Homer, the sexiness of John Donne’s sonnets, and what she’s learned from Margaret Atwood

Diving, Falling by Kylie Mirmohamadi review – death of the artist, husband, monster

This charming debut follows a middle-aged woman who is liberated after her famous husband dies, in a crowded field of new books unpicking heterosexual marriage

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney review – surprise moves in love, loss and chess

The Irish author explores bereavement and age-gap relationships in a breathtakingly intimate tale of two brothers and the women they turn to

Precipice by Robert Harris review – the prime minister’s affair

Wartime PM Asquith shares love letters and state secrets with aristocrat Venetia Stanley in a juicy political drama drawn from history

The Fertile Earth by Ruthvika Rao review – rebellion and romance in India

A dazzling debut weaves a love story around class and caste, at a time of revolutionary violence and change