Culture It started with a kiss: Valerie Trierweiler’s memoir Jane Shilling finds a blend of syrup and venom in this kiss-and-tell book by François Hollande’s former partner. By Jane Shilling
Books Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming: dense world-building that glitters with comic detail By Jane Shilling
Books Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead: Olga Tokarczuk’s grimly comic tale of death and vengeance By Jane Shilling
Books Infatuation, jealousy, heartbreak, trauma, addiction: when love becomes mental illness By Jane Shilling
Fasting and Feasting: the eccentric life of food writer Patience Gray Journalist Adam Federman clearly venerates his subject, and his research is overwhelmingly diligent. By Jane Shilling
“Living in the lap of luxury“: the strange wartime diaries of the woman behind Pippi Longstocking Astrid Lindgren's diaries reveal how Pippi's creator lived happily during the war – but was ascerbic about Britain's conduct. By Jane Shilling
Alone in Berlin fans will be satisfied with a newly translated Hans Fallada Rawer and more unevenly wrought than Alone in Berlin, Nightmare is the necessary precursor to that great work. By Jane Shilling
The stuff of life: how A S Byatt intertwined the lives of William Morris and Mariano Fortuny In Peacock & Vine, Byatt has turned works of art and their shade, texture, patina and heft into words. By Jane Shilling
Escape fantasies are common, but few of us actually leave – in How to Measure a Cow, someone does Margaret Forster's posthumous novel has much to admire – from its tragicomic opening chapters to the authenticity of its unusual… By Jane Shilling
Han Kang’s Human Acts chronicles the tragedy of ordinariness violated Human Acts deals with the obliteration, both physical and psychic, of hundreds of its own citizens by the South… By Jane Shilling
A Manual for Cleaning Women allows us to watch a virtuoso stylist at work The short stories by Lucia Berlin featured in this selection are perfectly poised. By Jane Shilling
Man Booker winner László Krasznahorkai is not “difficult” – only defiant Seiobo There Below, translated by Ottilie Mulzet, is László Krasznahorkai's most recent novel in English. By Jane Shilling