Three books offer a guide to shifting power in the region and what it means for the US and Europe
Christopher Clarey traces how the Spaniard came to dominate the French Open, among his 22 Grand Slam titles
Funmi Fetto’s tales of nine African women; Issa Quincy’s haunting vignettes; Louise Hegarty’s sparkling yet sad crime novel; Alexander Sammartino’s black comedy; and Saba Sams’ tender take on the messiness of life
The German writer’s first novel to be translated into English tackles young hopes, lives lived online — and the angst of turning 30
The Canadian author’s marvellous epic novel leaps back and forth through history to reinvent great lives
A first-hand account from the UAE’s longest-serving female minister about hosting the World Expo and transforming the emirate into an aspirational destination
Selena Wisnom walks the shelves of King Ashurbanipal’s library, revealing what the books tell us about the ideas circulating in 7th-century BC Mesopotamia
The American writer follows the misadventures of a prince, a trans teen, an undercover cop and more in this tightly wound tale
The story of a quirky design choice that turbocharged user-generated content — and is now clicked 160bn times a day
The reshaping of Eurasia by China and Russia; The 160bn-clicks-a-day ‘like’ button that changed the internet; how Dubai became an aspirational metropolis; a biography of tennis superstar Rafael Nadal; the wisdom of 7th-century BC Mesopotamia; Rutger Bregman’s manifesto for success while doing good; sublime short stories from Graham Swift; a time-hopping epic by Madeleine Thien; Berlin-set novels by Nell Zink and Leif Randt; a cold war Anglo-Soviet true love story — plus Alex Clark’s pick of audio books
The author’s archly modulated, precise prose has lost none of its power in this immensely readable collection of short stories
Iain Pears’ biography of Francis Haskell and Larissa Salmina is a tale of east-west romance in the cold war
The prizewinning witty chronicler of middle-class life claimed writing was her ‘salvation’
Group chats; Silicon Valley; bullshit jobs; obituaries; Pope Francis; and yes, more Liverpool
The bestselling Dutch historian makes a persuasive case for ambitious people to focus on under-the-radar causes
Rachel Joyce’s story of family havoc; Oisín Fagan’s epic tale; Nussaibah Younis’s wildly witty debut; and Adam Nicolson’s paean to birds
Three gruesome killings in the 1970s and the writer who hasn’t been able to stop investigating them
New books by Robert Macfarlane and Tony Juniper strengthen the case for granting the natural environment protection in law on par with personhood
Belatedly translated into English, the veteran author has been International Booker-shortlisted for her illuminating short-story collection
Ian Stewart takes an imaginative, scholarly look at Celticism and its shifting interpretations
Curator Carlo Ratti promises an exhibition which looks at how architecture can adapt to an age of climate crisis. Plus: interviews with Liz Diller and Bas Smets — and the politics of the porch
The Mexican author’s disturbing short stories subvert the comforting conventions of family life
Taylor Swift, the philosophy of AI, and imagining an anti-capitalist business school
Amid the ideas and wordplay, the author’s new novel only occasionally recalls the brilliance of his Patrick Melrose quintet
FT and Schroders launch Business Book of the Year Award as industry debates new technology
The renowned economist issues a timely warning that the threat to America’s currency comes from within, in the shape of a growing debt mountain
The poet captures to heart-rending effect the shame attached to adolescent queer desire
Why the intimate and flexible genre is favoured by dissidents and political exiles
Without the burden of straightforward biographical inventory, this inventive work of criticism sheds new light on the composer’s life
Mary Beth Norton delves into the 17th-century archives and finds familiar concerns, even if advice is often less than sympathetic
Use of em dashes is being taken as a tell-tale sign of machine-generated writing
Amid the seemingly existential challenge by AI to the artistic process, two books explore how human creativity responds to changing environments
Megan Hunter spans the decades in a sensual novel that traces the emotional fallout from an unexpected death
In-depth psychological portrait encompasses a turbulent life and a history of modern Ireland and its social attitudes
Vladislav Zubok’s monumental account is not just history, but a reassessment of a stand-off that still shapes geopolitics today
Jane Draycott skilfully evokes the strangeness and intensity of one of ancient Rome’s most complex figures
The late Peruvian Nobel laureate, who died this week, was a virtuoso storyteller and a visionary interpreter of his continent’s dreams. This pick of FT reviews, interviews and features looks back at his life and work
