Smash hit

West End Final by Hugo Williams/The Hunt in the Forest by John Burnside/A Scattering by Christopher Reid

The Sunday Times review by Sean O'Brien: affecting new work from Hugo Williams, John Burnside and Christopher Reid

Pops by Terry Teachout

The Sunday Times review by Robert Sandall: in public he was smiling and sunny, but the real Louis Armstrong, as this excellent life shows, was a far...

Waiting for Princess Margaret by Emma Tennant

The Sunday Times review by Lynn Barber: fact, fiction and memory become a fuzzy blur in this tale of growing up in a Scottish baronial castle

Love and Obstacles by Aleksandar Hemon/What Becomes by AL Kennedy

The Sunday Times review by John Spurling

Rain by Don Paterson

The Sunday Times review by Alan Brownjohn: an impressively personal and poignant collection from the winner of this year's Forward prize

Blood, Iron and Gold by Christian Wolmar

The Sunday Times review by James McConnachie: this epic history reveals just how much the modern world owes to the spread of the railways

The English Opium Eater by Robert Morrison

The Sunday Times review by John Carey: drug addict and alcoholic, Thomas De Quincey was one of English literature’s least savoury characters

Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen/Generation A by Douglas Coupland/Peace by Richard Bausch

The Sunday Times review by Robert Collins

The Original of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov ed Dmitri Nabokov

The Sunday Times review by Kevin Jackson: there’s the elderly gent with a taste for young girls, and plenty of adultery, but Nabokov’s...

Sin in the cities

The Sunday Times review by John Dugdale: sleaze in Berlin and Havana, spook-lore and piracy rub shoulders in our thiller roundup

Shooting Leave by John Ure

The Sunday Times review by Robert Harris: An entertaining account of the young British officers who risked life and limb to gather intelligence in...

Literary criticism by Frank Kermode and Zadie Smith

A fascination with E.M. Forster sent Kermode and Smith on a long journey

The Bedside Book of Beasts: A Wildlife Miscellany By Graeme Gibson

This celebration of hunting animals is not for the faint-hearted

In short; the week’s fiction; November 21, 2009

The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse Ghoul Britannia by Andrew Martin Lost by Gregory Maguire

As the nights grow longer and colder, it’s time for some winter chillers

The week’s crime fiction: November 21, 2009

Cold to the Touch by Frances Fyfield Rain Gods by James Lee Burke Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard

The week’s audio books: November 21, 2009

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

Walls’s grandmother was born dirt poor in Texas but she embodied the pioneering spirit

In short: the week’s nonfiction; November 21, 2009