Man who emerges from German TV series is a far cry from myth of tortured artist alienated from his family and jobThe word “kafkaesque” has come to describe the sensation of powerlessness when dealing with bureaucratic systems; of getting lost in labyrinthine administrative errands, being shut out by faceless officialdom and having your hopes strangled...

Come Here to This Gate by Rory Waterman; Are You There by Samantha Fain; Silver by Rowan Ricardo Phillips; All the Good Things You Deserve by Elaine Feeney; Poems 2016-2024 by JH PrynneCome Here to This Gate by Rory Waterman (Carcanet, £11.99) Waterman’s fourth collection opens with a series of elegies. “The sheep-tracks of your mind were worn to trenches”,...

With subjects ranging from Elvis to bubble and squeak, the poet’s unmistakable delivery elevates his satirical verse to the realms of high artThe latest poetry collection from John Cooper Clarke, AKA the Bard of Salford, What comes with themes including chlamydia, necrophilia, Elvis, the “misery soup” of rolling news, the late racing commentator Peter...

The crime writer on embracing atheism after reading Christopher Hitchens, the allure of Jhumpa Lahiri, and falling under George Orwell’s spellMy earliest reading memory An Enid Blyton – the Famous Five or the Sadistic Seven or whatever. I must have been about six. We were on holiday in Kolkata from Scotland for what felt like eternity. All I remember...

Shortlisted for the Women’s prize, this epic account of a country and a family torn apart combines the intimacy of a memoir with the urgency of reportageAmerican writer VV Ganeshananthan’s devastating second novel, Brotherless Night, has recently been shortlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction. Mainly set in Jaffna during the long, blood-drenched...

A bureaucrat in near-future London finds love with a Victorian Arctic explorer in a thrilling debut that takes a deep dive into human moralityFor a book to be good – really good, keep it on your shelf for ever good – it has to be two things: fun and a stretch. You have to need to know what happens next; and you have to feel like a bigger or better version...