Authors recommend their favourite recent reads, from addictive novels and fascinating cultural history to a game-changing graphic memoir

• Summer reading: the 50 hottest books for a great escape

Bernardine Evaristo
More Fiya: A New Collection of Black British Poetry, edited by Kayo Chingonyi, brings together a wonderful array of outstanding poets whose linguistic flair and wide-ranging perspectives excite, inspire and challenge in equal measure. As a companion, Canongate is also republishing the 1998 anthology The Fire People: A Collection of British Black and Asian Poetry, edited by Lemn Sissay.

Hilary Mantel
A novel featuring the young Joseph Stalin might not sound like summer entertainment, but Stephen May’s Sell Us the Rope is fresh and original: jaunty, cunning, thought-provoking but never solemn. For nonfiction, and a venture into the strange world of coincidence and prediction, try Sam Knight’s The Premonitions Bureau. It’s a book hard to classify, but wholly fascinating: lively, nimble, its subject poised on the frontiers of the possible.

Authors share the books they have enjoyed reading this year, including a hilarious dark comedy, poetry and a study of mystery illnesses

• Summer reading: the 50 hottest new books everyone should read

Hilary Mantel
Jaap Robben’s Summer Brother, longlisted for the International Booker, has a disabled child at its centre and squares up to dangerous subjects. It is a heartening novel, because though it asks the reader to think hard, it puts its faith in simplicity and love. Neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan offers The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness to put you wise about Havana syndrome and other puzzles: it’s not cheerful, but it is current and it is bracing.

Authors choose the Kazuo Ishiguro novels closest to their hearts, including Never Let Me Go, The Buried Giant and The Remains of the Day

• Read an exclusive of extract from Klara and the Sun
• Ishiguro interview: ‘AI, gene-editing, big data ... I worry we are not in control of these things any more’

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood, John Banville, Tom Stoppard, Ralph Fiennes, John Boorman and more pay tribute to a master who transcended the limits of spy fiction