The Scottish writer, whose career spanned more than 35 years, was one of only three people to have won both of the UK’s most prestigious poetry prizes for the same book• The books of my life: John BurnsideJohn Burnside, author of Black Cat Bone and The Asylum Dance, has died aged 69 after a short illness. He died on 29 May, his publisher has confirmed.Though...

Them! by Harry Josephine Giles; Still City by Oksana Maksymchuk; Conflicted Copy by Sam Riviere; The Collected Poems by Roger McGough; Sleepers Awake by Oli HazzardThem! by Harry Josephine Giles (Picador, £10.99) The title sounds like a B-movie. We start reading and find it’s about transgender life in modern Britain, then read a bit more to find it’s...

A mother reveals her mysterious past in a tale of choice and the roads not takenIf you thought Ann Patchett snagging Tom Hanks to read the audiobook of her 2019 novel The Dutch House was a coup, for her ninth novel she has lured Meryl Streep into the recording booth. Tom Lake sees a family brought together during the 2020 pandemic on a farm in Michigan....

Authors, critics and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the commentsI have been a devoted fan of Welsh author Carys Davies since reading her collection of stories The Redemption of Galen Pike a decade ago. Her new novel, Clear, is deft, atmospheric, myth-making and wears its historical setting...

Shortlisted for the Women’s prize, this immersive debut tells an intergenerational story about coming of age in a country that’s rapidly growing A country (China) and two characters – Alva, a mixed-race teenager in Shanghai, and Lu Fang, her new stepfather, an older Chinese businessman – come of age in Aube Rey Lescure’s debut. Exploring change, class...

This history of the bitter fight over the Federal Theatre Project has disturbing lessons for today’s politicsAt the beginning of his history of the Federal Theatre, Shakespeare expert James S Shapiro gives the dictionary definition of playbook: both “a book containing scripts of dramatic plays” and “a set of tactics frequently employed by one engaged...