Guardian review
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Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders review – extraordinary story of the afterlifeThe short story master’s first novel is a tale of great formal daring, set in the cemetery where Abraham Lincoln mourns his son
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Aeneid VI by Seamus Heaney review – through ‘death’s dark door’ with Virgil
Nicholas Lezard's choice Aeneid VI by Seamus Heaney review – through ‘death’s dark door’ with Virgil
Nicholas Lezard’s paperback of the week: The last work Heaney finished before he died in 2013, this stirring translation of the best book in the Latin epic poem takes us into the underworld
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Idaho by Emily Ruskovich review – the scent of a murderBeginning with an unthinkable act of family violence, this moving and profound debut investigates the limits of memory and imagination
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Strangers, secrets and desire: the surreal world of Sophie CalleCalle has long found beauty in the bizarre – her appearance on the Deutsche Börse photography prize shortlist is overdue
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Helen Dunmore: facing mortality and what we leave behindThe novelist, recently diagnosed with cancer, considers the question of legacy and how a wander through a graveyard inspired her latest novel Birdcage Walk
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Elizabeth Strout: ‘I have never written anything from beginning to end’The Pulitzer prize-winning novelist on writing by hand, thinking aloud and forming a work out of scenes
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Why Antony Gormley’s iron men are broadening our horizonsGormley’s life-sized figures have kept lookout from waterside sites from Suffolk to the Bristol Channel – their transient quality is part of their timeless appeal
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Darke by Rick Gekoski review – ‘passing the dying days’This late-life debut charts the passions of a curmudgeonly bibliophile as he reconnects with his football fan grandson
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The Long Drop by Denise Mina review – meet Scotland’s worst serial killerThis true crime story about Peter Manuel, ‘the Beast of Birkenshaw’, alternates between a bizarre pub crawl with a relative of the victims and his trial for murder in 1958
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Respectable by Lynsey Hanley review – crossing the class divideNicholas Lezard’s paperback of the week: a personal survey of class in Britain that should be essential reading in the Brexit era
Carnivalesque by Neil Jordan review – nights at the circus