Five Great Reads: a mercenary’s tale, Emma Thompson’s family life and the loss of a treasured toy

Dame Emma Thompson with her daughter, actor Gaia Wise, on a red carpet in London. ‘She’s all fire and sparks,’ Thompson writes. Photograph: Can Nguyen/REX/Shutterstock

Hello, Alyx Gorman here again, with much thanks to Rafqa Touma for minding the reads these past few days. We have all made it to the end of another week, and also to the end of Five Great Reads’ run as a daily newsletter. Thank you all for keeping me company this summer, and for the lovely emails. With the working year very much on, I’m off. I’ll be taking a little holiday; so this goodbye, but not forever.

I’ve had plenty of requests to keep the reads coming, so that’s the plan, but weekly rather than daily. If you’ve got a preference for Saturday or Sunday (or some other day); or any other feedback, please feel free to email me at [email protected].