‘Genuinely brilliant from cover to cover’: your favourite books of 2018

We asked for your opinions on the most outstanding books of the year. From novels by Sally Rooney and Gail Honeyman to memoirs by Brett Anderson and Michelle Obama, here’s what some of you said

John le Carré to tackle ‘division and rage’ of 2018 in new novel

Agent Running in the Field, the 87-year-old author’s 25th novel, will be set in London and published in October 2019

Best books of 2018

Observer critics pick their must reads of 2018, from life in 50s Harlem to a tale about the Troubles via Michael Wolff’s lurid profile of Donald Trump

Jane Harper, Tom Keneally, Anne Summers and others on what they’re reading this month

Plus essays from Alice Pung, a new Garry Disher thriller, a biography of Germaine Greer and short stories from a Miles Franklin winner

The best recent thrillers – review roundup

The Whisperer by Karin Fossum, Dan Fesperman’s Safe Houses, Tami Hoag’s The Boy, Murder in the Caribbean by Robert Thorogood, The Listeners by Anthony J Quinn and A Place to Lie by Rebecca Griffiths

Night of Camp David: the return of a 1965 book about an insane president

Referenced by Rachel Maddow and Bob Woodward, a pulpy thriller about a commander-in-chief losing command of reality is receiving a timely rerelease

Award for thriller without violence against women goes to Jock Serong

Inaugural Staunch prize won by the Australian novelist’s On the Java Ridge, in which a group of surfers tries to rescue a refugee boat from a storm

‘A pas de deux of sex and violence’: a poet’s guide to film noir

Claustrophobic and nihilistic, a disturbing universe with dramatic lighting. An award-winning poet explains why he immersed himself in film noir for his Booker-prize shortlisted debut novel

The best recent thrillers – review roundup

A writer’s gothic tale is brought to life and a kidnap victim is left with strange powers in this month’s must-reads

The best recent thrillers – review roundup

Mick Herron’s The Drop, The Kingfisher Secret by Anonymous, Aftershock by Adam Hamdy, The Insider by Mari Hannah, Lisa Gabriele’s The Winters and Homegrown Hero by Khurrum Rahman

We need to read about trauma – the perpetrators as well as the victims

As the new Staunch prize sets out to reward thrillers that shun brutality against women, the Ghost Wall author explains how she writes about violence

The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell review – a genre-busting gothic

Who is stealing souls in Whitechapel? O’Donnell brings Victorian London gloriously to life in an unorthodox confection of thrills and chills

The Girl in the Spider’s Web review – Claire Foy channels 007 for mixed reboot

The Crown star adds weight to an efficiently made yet ultimately empty attempt to resurrect goth-hacker Lisbeth Salander

Trust no one: how Le Carré’s Little Drummer Girl predicted our dangerous world

Secret interrogations, elaborately staged deceptions, conspiracies and murder ... John le Carré’s murky spy thriller could not be more relevant

The Fox by Frederick Forsyth – digested read

John Crace puts the squeeze on the master thriller writer’s tale of teenage hackers, Russian spies and English baronets