The towering ambition of city skyscrapers; women writers’ stories of marital breakdown; a teacher’s eye-view of China; what the medieval crusades were really about; behind the booming wellness sector; an epic time-spanning novel by Elif Shafak; new fiction from Donal Ryan and Paddy Crewe; James Lovegrove’s pick of sci-fi titles — plus our obituary of Edna O’Brien
Paddy Crewe conjures loss, alienation and 1980s deprivation in a striking departure from his 1830s-set debut ‘My Name is Yip’
Irish author returns to the characters of his debut novel, revealing changes in them and their society
From ancient Nineveh to Victorian London to the present day — the author’s restless novel flows across epochs and continents
A clutch of new memoirs and novels draws on female authors’ lived experience of marital discord
Having launched her literary career in scandal and outrage, she was revered by readers — and, in time, her homeland — as a charismatic change-maker
Former Avenger swaps Hell’s Kitchen for quaint England while Conan cuts a swath through zombieland
Camille Bordas’s ensemble piece, set at a stand-up comedy school, has much to say about how we live now
There is passion — and humour — throughout this novel about a same-sex marriage in its final throes but it is a dark tale of domestic anguish
Amitava Kumar’s new novel traces the country’s recent history through a life less ordinary
Themes of karma, fame, sexual experimentation and familial trauma are explored
The late author’s debut novel from 1959 has all the pleasure and tantalising mystery of her greatest short stories
The ‘City on Fire’ author returns with a full-blown tale of a troubled teen and her equally troubled father
A deftly told tale of dysfunction across continents and generations
A debut novel set in Mussolini’s Italy expands into more timeless themes of adolescence and rebellion in a male-dominated world
The follow-up to ‘The Incendiaries’ is an inventive, if sometimes too florid, examination of sex and societal expectations
A young woman becomes increasingly jealous of her boyfriend’s ex-partner in Bea Setton’s unsettling, risk-taking novel
Reluctant guardians fall for the child placed in their imperfect care in Tom Lamont’s impressive debut novel
Part memoir, part science, part history, the Tasmanian novelist’s latest book rejoices in resisting definition
Irvine Welsh’s Ray Lennox confronts trauma again; puzzling happenings in Dubai and Tokyo; plus echoes of Marple and Ripley
A novelist who survived one of eastern Europe’s most vicious tyrannies and drew comparisons with Kafka and Orwell
A collection of contemporary short stories offers a refreshing range of responses to the absurdist nature of modern life
A wealthy family’s life is upturned by a kidnapping in Taffy Brodesser-Ackner’s fine follow-up to ‘Fleishman Is in Trouble’
Andrzej Tichý’s stories of lives blighted by poverty are told with an unnerving command of structure and narrative
The dark side of 1930s Europe, a mysterious brothel in present-day Belgravia — plus a topical Syrian-set story from a ‘Spiral’ screenwriter
