A new comic play about Trotsky and his friends in pre-revolution Russia, popular fantasy writer Lian Hearn has a new prequel in her Otori books series, our regular Arts news round-up, and landscape and history loom large in a new exhibition called Panorama at Tarrawarra Museum of Art.

Deborah Abela. All These Perfect Strangers by Aoife Clifford. Fiftieth National Folk Festival. Ann Morgan's novel Beside Myself.

Zombies: A Cultural History. Richard Jordan's round-up of theatre in Britain and the USA. Fellside; a prisoner's tale with a ghostly twist. Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio.

David Dyer on The Midnight Watch, which tells the true story of the ship that saw the Titanic's distress signals yet did nothing; acclaimed Australian artist Callum Morton on his latest work, which is an exact recreation of the foyer of the influential Anna Schwartz Gallery, and Gabriel Packard's debut novel The Painted Ocean.

Shirley Hazzard's life as an essayist. Splendour, a play about power and secrets. The Vinyl Frontier: Northeast Asia. Top shelf: Maria Tumarkin.

Dr Nick Enfield gives us a new field guide to the human conversation machine, we visit this year's Biennale of Sydney, writer Patrick Gale chooses his masterpiece and Magnum photographer Mikhael Subotzky's new work.

Take a tour of Detective John Rebus's Edinburgh and hear from the popular crime fiction character's creator Ian Rankin, and a conversation with Irish crime writer Adrian McKinty about his new novel.

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift. Top Shelf - Kutcha Edwards. Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves. The Vinyl Frontier: Northeast Asia.

Photographer Roger Ballen's Theatre of the Mind. Anya Brock: from animals to abstracts. Jeffrey Archer's latest novel Cometh the Hour. Jesse Ball's 'How To Light A Fire And Why'.

American sci-fi writer Paolo Bacigalupi discusses his new novel The Water Knife.