From pageturning thrillers and comic novels to an antidote to doomscrolling

Fiction: The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson Longlisted for the Women’s prize, this is a darkly funny portrait of a dysfunctional family

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Bad Actors by Mick Herron: Herron is on playful form in the eighth outing for his ragtag gang of demoted MI5 operatives

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Companion Piece by Ali Smith: Smith follows her seasonal quartet with a sideways look at the harm lockdown did to us all

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To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara: The magisterial follow-up to A Little Life offers three books in one. A fragile, wealthy young man looks for love

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The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett: The Appeal, about murder in a gossipy amateur-dramatics community, was told through emails

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Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo: In this Zimbabwean successor to Animal Farm, inspired by the fall of Robert Mugabe

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The Journey of Humanity by Oded Galor: In an age of seemingly relentless bad news, economist Oded Galor provides an antidote to doomscrolling

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