Even the best governments can’t bring about change in a broken system, according to this urgent plea for reform

A journalist travels across the US to unravel the secrets surrounding the life and death of his Ethiopian immigrant father

The voices of ordinary Indians take centre stage in this absorbing account of political transformation

A concise study of Tennessee Williams, John Cheever, Carson McCullers and James Baldwin, and how their sexuality informed their work, veers between lecture-hall lit crit and novelistic immediacy

A new novel from the author of The Exhibitionist is a family saga of rare insight, with another magnificently grotesque villain at its heart

A mother’s quest to understand why the murder of her two daughters was not taken more seriously

A fascination with words and symbols provides a unifying theme in this richly ambiguous collection of short stories

A lively biography of the public schoolboy who became a scourge of corrupt politicians and dodgy businessmen

The inner thoughts of an Irish community speak volumes about the state of the nation in Donal Ryan’s sequel to The Spinning Heart

The San Francisco poet’s work is richly illuminated by this detailed account of his early traumas, dread of ‘deep emotion’ and addiction to casual sex

The Marx Brothers collaborator and New Yorker writer returns to the dime store novels and schlocky movies of his teens – and nails American culture

A young woman returns to the university town where she grew up in this biting satire of precarity and privilege

From ancient Roman condiment to vitamin-packed super food, how anchovies made a culinary splash

A woman is haunted by her traumatic Australian childhood – and her dead boyfriend – in a darkly funny novel that hints at hope

A masterful guide to the new age of authoritarianism

This enthralling, cinematic study of the occupation and recapture of the French capital reads like an epic thriller

The academic’s page-turning volume of essays – a study of intellectuals who sought to improve the politics and societies of their day – makes you feel a little more learned than you did before

The follow-up to Fleishman Is in Trouble explores the fallout from a kidnapping in a rich American family

From 2,000-year-old Pacific redwoods to the mighty Peruvian ceiba, a survey of extraordinary trees

A young female writer is drawn into the family of a revered novelist and patriarch, in this powerfully compelling dissection of the creative process