American production of a play with music, Girl from the North Country, was more fraught than most

Horrible guardians, an absent mother and a child who enters a secret laboratory make for enjoyable reads

In a manner not unlike Forrest Gump, beer meets famous Irish characters through history, from St Brigid to Daniel O’Connell

It will be interesting to see whether the author is willing to move out of his comfort zone

This multigenerational, transatlantic family saga starts with 9/11 and swerves back in time to Donegal in the 1970s

Declan Burke reviews Murder Mindfully by Karsten Dusse, Asia Mackay’s A Serial Killer’s Guide to Marriage, Uketsu’s Strange Pictures, Sam Blake’s The Killing Sense and Esther García Llovet’s Spanish Beauty

Influential writers look at how the Chinese leader is moulding his country - and the West - to fit his vision

Blair reports from the front line of the war between big business and the indigenous communities, all the while connecting the past with the present

Dinan is also excellent on the often anti-erotic experience of modern dating

Blouin’s story serves as a microcosm for the near misses, cycles and reason-defying hope that characterise Africa’s past

No Sally Rooney-type introspection in epic stories dating from Iron Age in this enchanting collection

‘Commentators found it impossible to imagine a different camp: the camp of life’ when faced with demands to cease the slaughter of innocents

Dutch journalist Michel Krielaars infuses a bleak subject with verve

One book concerns itself with long-suffering fans, while other focuses on love affair between players

Novel delicately portrays the journey of a migrant caught between dreams of success and the harsh realities of life in post-war England

Now released in the UK and Ireland, Gornick’s memoir of city life, friendship and gender inequality explores the joy and challenges of living alone

A woman escapes her manipulative creep of a husband. This powerful book asks: what now?

While recent struggles occupy the authors, a deeper examination of working-class politics in 20th-century Ireland would have been revealing

Including Let the Light In by Jenny Downham and Louis Hill; After Life by Gayle Forman, and The Boy I Love by William Hussey

Caroline Darian’s book is an uncomfortable read, albeit one with great immediacy, that is let down at times by its translation