‘The habit of reading good books needs all the talented defenders it can find’

The author etches the milieu of Irish emigrants in a mid-1980s London squat with grimy, sexy granularity

No overview or editorial explanation of the crux of masculinity is offered. This is just a book of testimony

Commitment to being out in the world with other people may reveal one of the book’s most vital messages

Margaret Kelleher seeks to introduce new readers to the work of this successful intellectual couple

New books for teen readers from Máire Zepf, Kelechi Okafor, Elizabeth Acevedo and Catherine Doyle

Stories of envelopes exchanged in pubs and Mafiosi-like politicians are familiar, but they still shock

Guardian’s chief culture writer offers Ukrainian art as something happening now, not work to be interpreted later

The Italian theoretical physicist’s most ambitious work so far is marvellous, insouciant and liberating

Plea for ‘ecological sovereignty’ should persuade many of us islanders to reconnect with our true inheritance

Account of impotent KGB double-agent lives up to its claim to be the untold story of the cold war’s most extraordinary spy

A work of emotional magnitude that interrogates pain at the source without searching for a neat encapsulation

Practised detachment allows privilege to maintain itself, unchecked, write Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

Kevin Rafter narrates tale of an Ireland seeking public accountability, a new assertiveness in the media, and impetus towards liberalism and tolerance

Mícheál McCann reviews Milk & Moon-water by Milena Williamson; Real Estate by Mark Ward; Landscape with Question by Leeanne Quinn; and 48kg by Batool Abu Akleen

Kyla Cobbler shares her frequently ‘laugh-out-loud funny’ experience of childhood, toxic relationships, mental health struggles and inspiring journey to self-love

Kremlin has consistently promoted itself as anti-colonial leader against western ‘neo-colonialism’ on behalf of Global South

Historical novel’s Carry On up the South Bank element dilutes potential for a more satisfying read

Seamus Deane warns of the dangers of sentimentalising a precolonial past (the Gaelic Eden) or idealising a postcolonial future (when the island is one, all will be well)

An odyssey rooted in the experience of growing up in 1980s Belfast