Books & Poetry

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Philip Roth

What is the What
Dave Eggers
(Hamish Hamilton)
Deft and sensitive fictionalising of experience of Sudanese ‘lost boy’. Read review

Day
AL Kennedy
(Cape)
WWII bomber pilot Day struggles with survivor’s guilt. Read review

Dandy in the Underworld
Sebastian Horsley
(Sceptre)
Demented account of a life gone wrong. Read review

Skin Lane
Neil Bartlett
(Serpent’s Tail)
Tense evocation of a ’60s London summer.

Feature continues

Thames: Sacred River
Peter Ackroyd
(Chatto & Windus)
A great foamy mass of watery facts (and a bit of mystical speculation).

The End of Mr Y
Scarlett Thomas
(Canongate)
A cursed book is a portal into another dimension.

The Rain Before It Falls
Jonathan Coe
(Viking)
Tape-recorded monologue by a dying woman looking back on her life.

On Chesil Beach
Ian McEwan
(Cape)
Newlyweds’ sexual fumbling. Read review

Death of a Murderer
Rupert Thomson
(Bloomsbury)
Musings of the policeman sent to guard Myra Hindley’s body.

On Chesil Beach
Ian McEwan
(Cape)
Newlyweds’ sexual fumbling. Read review

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
Xiaolu Guo
(Chatto & Windus)
Sour-sweet comedy of cultural misunderstanding.

The Wild Places
Robert Macfarlane
(Granta)
Joyous and celebratory excursions into untended landscapes.

South of the River
Blake Morrison
(Chatto & Windus)
London-set state-of-the-nation novel.

Exit Ghost
Philip Roth
(Cape)
Zuckerman’s last stand.

Agent Zigzag
Ben Macintyre
(Bloomsbury)
Incredible story of World War II double agent Eddie Chapman, superbly told. Read review

London in the Nineteenth Century
Jerry White
(Cape)
Unmissable slab of social history by London’s most readable chronicler. Read review

Letters of Ted Hughes
Christopher Reid (Ed.)
(Faber)
The late poet’s private correspondence. Read review