The Guardian's Asia Environment correspondent Jonathan Watts has spent eight years in China and has witnessed China's growing industrial might, and the consequent impact on the nation's people and environment. When a Billion Chinese Jump is his assessment of what's become a critical situation for the entire planet.

The Kaiser's Holocaust is David Olusoga's (with co-author Casper Erichsen) chilling account of Germany's bid in the 19th century to become an African colonial power - a venture which took a genocidal turn and, the authors argue, was one of the roots of Nazism.

In our latest Faber Podcast we speak to Norman Lebrecht and Francis Spufford. They both address similar questions in their books: how do you capture the essence of real lives; how do you escape some of the constraints of conventional non-fiction and biography; and how can you borrow some of the novelist's techniques and still remain faithful to your subjects. In Why Mahler? and Red Plenty, Lebrecht and Spufford offer their own unique solutions ...

Red Plenty' is a book that's very hard to pin down. It's fictionalised non-fiction. Some of its characters are real, others invented. Here to tell us more for the Faber Podcast is the author, Francis Spufford.

Exclusively for the Faber website, Norman Lebrecht talks us through Why Mahler?, his fascinating celebration of one of the most important classical composers, and one of the most enduringly popular.

In our latest podcast Louise Doughty, with her sixth novel Whatever You Love, tells us how she managed to explore the darkest territory imaginable - dealing with the death of a child. We also talk to science writer Marek Kohn about climate change and the implications it has for all of us - in the UK and beyond - which is the subject of his new book, Turned Out Nice.

Whatever You Love is Louise Doughty's sixth novel, and her first to be published by Faber. Its subject matter is dark - the central story deals with the death of a child and the subsequent fall-out. In an interview for the Faber Podcast Doughty explains how novelists put themselves in the necessary mindset to explore such raw territory.

The UK has seen its wettest January for more than a century, whilst California is suffering its worst drought for the same amount of time. And whilst the band of climate change deniers seems only to grow, the general consensus is that global warming is causing irreversible damage to all parts of the globe. In 'Turned Out Nice', Marek Kohn presents a stark and authoritative vision of the future. He looks specifically at the UK but in the context of the wider world, and how our descendants' relationship to neighbouring countries might be impacted. What might the UK look like if we all carry on in the same way?

There's glamour and drama in both books featured in this month's Faber Podcast. In his new novel The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe, Andrew O'Hagan gives us a canine's eye-view of the whirlwind final years in the life of the Hollywood icon. Meanwhile, in Lucy Worsley's Courtiers, the milieu is the Georgian Royal Household, where life below-stairs goes hand-in-hand with all the fun above-stairs.

In his new novel The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his friend Marilyn Monroe Andrew O'Hagan takes the very real Maltese terrier (a gift from Frank Sinatra in 1960), and makes him the philosophical commentator on the final years of the Hollywood icon's life.