Our top six books this week: The History of Emotions and Anthony Quinn’s Curtain Call

Language of War, Language of Peace by Rajah Shehadeh. Always worth reading, Palestine’s best known writer, Rajah Shehadeh, turns to the incendiary topic of the language of politics and minefield of meaning in the use of words to justify, define and rewrite the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

After Hitler: The Last Days of the Second World War in Europe by Michael Jones. The historian offers a day-by-day account of the political manoeuvrings within the remnants of the Third Reich and between the Allied powers after Hitler’s suicide. There would be 10 more days until the end of the war in Europe and a reckoning of another kind.

Don’t Let Him Know by Sandip Roy. A nuanced debut from Roy, who examines the legacy of family secrets when an old letter to a new bride is discovered and read decades later by her son. The story crosses continents from Calcutta to San Francisco, examining the effect of emigration.

Wallflowers by Eliza Robertson. A collection of short stories from the award-winning Canadian author. Rich in detail, Robertson’s stories about individual loss and tests of strength are written through the prism of what she calls her “slanted reality” while the author herself shows remarkable control.

Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn. Critics have loved this elegant comedy of manners set in London’s Theatreland in the 1930s. Quinn brings together a cast of colourful characters, including a theatre critic, a shopgirl, a society painter and a West End actress, in the hunt for the Tie-Pin Killer.

Here are the fiction and non-fiction books we’re reading this week.