“It’s not often that an author described on his own Wikipedia page as ‘disgracefully neglected’ is awarded a €100,000 literary prize. But this is where the Irish author Mike McCormack finds himself, with Wednesday’s announcement that he has won the International Dublin literary award for his novel, Solar Bones. As someone who has hovered close to mainstream success without ever shaking off the slightly damning label of ‘writer’s writer’, he is unsurprisingly delighted.”

‘An immense and moving jazz riff… The acutely immersive world of American Histories is irresistible, and these profoundly moving stories will haunt you long after you’ve finished reading.’

Watch Robert Webb read from his bestselling memoir How Not to be a Boy at the Hay Festival: ‘I thought only wimps needed manners, and only tough guys were brave.’

“Wideman is a writer who excels at dramatising African American sensibilities and this collection typically addresses issues of race, injustice and inequality with power and potency. Crystallised moments of experience carry entire worlds in stories … from the whimsical to the political. This is published alongside Wideman’s earlier novels and is a gem for anyone yet to discover his work.”

“Laidlaw brought Glasgow to life more viscerally than any book I had read before: the good and the bad, the language and the humour, the violence and the drinking … This book made me realise that pacey, streetwise thrillers didn’t have to be American: we had mean streets enough of our own.”

The Guardian asked great crime writers to pick their favourite crime novels, and Christopher Brookmyre thinks you should be reading William McIlvanney’s Laidlaw.

“An excellent new book is imminent: Fully Coherent Plan for a New and Better Society features 254 new illustrations, all drawn in his distinctive thick black pen on stark white paper, the naivety of the image offset by the scabrous, surreal or darkly comic text.”

David Shrigley interviewed in the Observer.

and you could win a fine statuette of his Fourth Plinth commission, to remind you forever that things are Really Good.