John Crace whips through the lastest instalment of EL James’s sado-masochistic bestseller, Grey, and asks if it’s time to apply the safe word

John Crace squashes Houellebecq’s Submission and asks whether the sacred monster of French fiction is just making trouble for its own sake

John Crace puts the annotated editon of the Nobel laureate’s poetical works through the wringer and assesses the stature of the modernist master

John Crace boils down The Buried Giant and asks whether this genre-bending quest novel is destined for the halls of glory or the mists of forgetfulness

John Crace puts the squeeze on Go Set a Watchman, and considers its effect on the author’s reputation

John Crace digests Hillary Clinton’s latest autobiography, and picks it over for clues to vital questions – what does she really think of Obama?

John Crace digests Murakami's latest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage, and wonders if the bestselling Japanese author has bleached the life out of his fiction

John Crace digests Val McDermid’s update of Northanger Abbey, and asks if her attempt to square up to Austen’s gothic melodrama is fine or foolhardy• More digested reads podcasts

John Crace digests Caitlin Moran’s debut novel, How to Build a Girl, down to 600 words, and wonders what it adds to the autobiography that set her on the crest of the fourth wave of feminism

John Crace digests Martin Amis’s new novel The Zone of Interest down to 600 words, and wonders if he was wise to return to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust