A very clever debut from a distinguished hand in the art world: a Cambridge don rather stuck in his ways is repelled by an outbreak of modern art in his quad. Wafted on a cloud of academic d... read more
A Crimean War hero's divorce & remarriage causes two lines of descendants, who meet up again one summer in Devon in the 1970s. Ructions ensue. Shrewdly observed and compelling.
A rollocking historical novel set in Renaissance Venice: an artist sets his heart on a miraculous new pigment, only to find himself caught up in conspiracies, a love affair, violence, obsess... read more
A new technology that can download a person's memory and then allows it to be shared - all of it - has taken the world by storm. Clever, funny, disconcerting.
Against the backdrop of WW2 and its aftermath, a young Italian woman marries and moves to her husband's village in the south. Ginzburg's characteristically limpid prose harbours may details ... read more
A Yorkshire childhood, remembered in lockdown, collides with immense global forces. Hunters in the Snow, Hildyard's previous novel - her first - was excellent.
A young woman in Tokyo takes a few tentative steps outward after years of isolation. Kawakami's unsettling lyricism and candour about ordinary modern lives have made her one of Japan's most ... read more
A powerful debut novel set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles: a young woman embarks on an affair with a married man, and - inevitably - there are consequences, sharpened by the layerin... read more
A second novel from the author of Preparation for the Next Life, in which a young man confronts his estranged father and protects his ailing mother. Lish's writing is spare but precise, wit... read more
A new novel by the author of The Heavens which recalls Usula le Guin's flawed Utopia in which one person's constant suffering pays for the perpetual bliss of all others.
A retired Vietnam veteran receives a package in the post that shows him that he has more to do before he is done with the past. A desert crossing blurs with his inner journey - a very fine n... read more
A day in the life of two women navigating grief and love, isolation and self-determination: a first and very intelligent novel from the author of Notes to Self.
Born in Russia, Poplavsky fled to Paris in the Revolution, where he become a literary and artistic enfant terrible of the emigré circles of Montparnasse. This novel, translated into English... read more
A memorable and delightful old woman - who could have been a fifth columnist in Montypython's Hell's Grannies - takes on the education of an edgy granddaughter.
A marvellous dose of black humour: an atheist is murdered, only to discover that not only is there an afterlife but also his widow is getting a bit too close to his killer.