The Names author Florence Knapp: ‘I’d love to write with Maya Angelou’s warmth’

The debut author on the brilliance of Charlotte Brontë, coming late to Harper Lee, and aspiring to write like Claire Keegan

The Best Recent Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror

The Library of Traumatic Memory by Neil Jordan; The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan; Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison; Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman; Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran

Daisy Johnson: ‘I wasn’t a fan of David Szalay, but Flesh is a masterpiece’

The Booker-shortlisted author on a momentous teenage encounter with The Bone People, getting a buzz from Peter Høeg’s Miss Smilla, and trying to avoid The Lorax

The Best Recent Poetry

Gravity Archives by Andrew Motion; Rabbitbox by Wayne Holloway-Smith; Strange Architectures by JL Williams; I Do Know Some Things by Richard Siken

Saba Sams: ‘I’ve no interest in reading Wuthering Heights again’

The Send Nudes author on rereading Lorrie Moore, finding Dodie Smith at the right time, and the enduring brilliance of Muriel Spark

The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain review

Portraying the breakdown of the couple’s marriage through the eyes of the people around them, this deeply researched and utterly convincing debut is an astonishing achievement

Butter author Asako Yuzuki: ‘I’m very far from the ideal Japanese woman’

Her novel about a female serial killer was a global hit. As Asako Yuzuki’s second book is published in English, she talks about criticism at home – and why she’ll be writing darker stories in the future

How to Put Sex in a Novel

In a new book, intimate fantasies become a crucial vehicle for character development.

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in February

Francis Spufford, Manish Chauhan and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

Ben Markovits: ‘I used to think any book concerned with people falling in love can’t be very good’

The British-American author on arguing about Jane Austen, the joys of Jerome K Jerome, and revising his opinion of Philip Roth

I’ll Be the Monster by Sean Gilbert review

The dark past of a seemingly perfect couple is gradually revealed in this observant debut of obsession and control

The Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova review

Written from exile after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this autofictional blend of memory and fable tracks a changing sense of self