Top Choices - FICTION
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (Viking £14.99)
The most exciting debut of the year, a clever, wickedly funny satire on
working lives, based in a vipers’ nest of an ad agency in Chicago
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Cape £12.99)
Even readers who have previously found McEwan cold will warm to this gripping
novel about the first-night agonies of two newlyweds in the 1960s
Digging to America by Anne Tyler (Vintage £7.99)
Tyler is at the top of her wry and comic form in this warm-hearted tale of the
growing pains of two American families who adopt Korean babies
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (Fourth Estate
£17.99)
A hilarious, antic whirl, part counterfactual history, part homage to Raymond
Chandler, set in the Jewish homeland of Alaska
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (HarperPerennial
£7.99)
Civil war and ethnic rivalry are tackled movingly and with a certain grim
humour in this Orange prizewinning novel
Top Choices -NON-FICTION
Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre (Bloomsbury £7.99)
Wonderfully readable account of the career of Britain’s most unlikely
double-agent, a safe-cracker who was the only Briton to win the Iron Cross
The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple (Bloomsbury £8.99)
The 1857 Indian mutiny brought spectacularly to life via the story of Dehli’s
last Mughal emperor, who became the revolt’s unwilling figurehead
The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown (Century £18.99)/Diana by
Sarah Bradford (Penguin £7.99)
Two contrasting takes on the life of the “queen of hearts”, both of them
intriguing reads
Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Bloomsbury
£12.99)
This eye-opening account of life inside Baghdad’s green zone has just won the
Samuel Johnson prize
Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins by Rupert Everett (Abacus £7.99)
Funny, bitchy account of a life in film, starring Sharon Stone, Madonna and
Julia Roberts – all quite mad, poor dears
FICTION
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky (Vintage £7.99) A
modern classic: second-world-war France gets the War and Peace treatment in
two superb novellas, written by an author who died in Auschwitz
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Picador £7.99) An uncompromising vision of
postapocalyptic hell, as a father and son search desperately for safety in
America
Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allen (Bloomsbury £7.99) A darkly funny
debut about a young woman caught in an asylum whose only way out is to feign
madness
The Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris (Doubleday £17.99) An irresistible
read for Chocolat lovers keen to follow the further adventures of Vianne
Rocher
After This by Alice McDermott (Bloomsbury £10.99) Impeccably
encapsulates, in simple yet wrenching prose, one American family’s life
during the 1960s and 1970s
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters (Virago £7.99) From the author of
Fingersmith, a vivid and compelling Man Booker-shortlisted tale of secret
lives in blitz-blasted London
Everyman by Philip Roth (Vintage £6.99) Roth’s brilliant novella about
a man’s declining years manages the extraordinary feat of looking death
square in the face while affirminglife
Keeping the World Away by Margaret Forster (Vintage £7.99) A
delicately written, beautifully crafted novel that focuses on a Gwen John
painting as it passes from one generation of female painters to another
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo (Chatto
£12.99) Winning tale of a Chinese student in London to learn English and her
oddball relationship with a middle-aged man
The Sun over Breda by Arturo Perez-Reverte (Weidenfeld £9.99) Another
swashbuckling 17th-century adventure as a teenage pageboy joins his
soldier-of-fortune master in the Catholic armies fighting the Dutch
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday (Phoenix £6.99) This gentle
comedy won the PG Wodehouse award for its beguiling depiction of the
political necessities behind a scheme to create a salmon river in Yemen
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Bloomsbury £16.99) Fans of
The Kite Runner will love Hosseini’s second novel, about two wives united in
their hatred of their abusive husband
The Delivery Room by Sylvia Brownrigg (Picador £7.99) A novel of depth
and intelligence based around a psychotherapist and the odd assortment of
patients that parades through her office
Matters of Life & Death by Bernard MacLaverty (Vintage £7.99) An
enthralling collection of short stories that pitches the reader headfirst
into the sectarian fearfulness of Belfast
Falling Man by Don DeLillo (Picador £16.99) Opening in New York
on the morning of 9/11, DeLillo’s profoundly disquieting novel examines the
effects of the event on the lives of a handful of people
Disobedience by Naomi Alderman (Penguin £7.99) Alderman was voted
Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year for her humane and beautifully plotted
tale of a lapsed Jewish girl’s return to Hendon for her rabbi father’s
funeral
Mother’s Milk by Edward St Aubyn (Picador £7.99) The hero of the
acclaimed Some Hope trilogy hits the midlife buffers in this addictively
acidic skewering of a dysfunctional upper-class family
My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman (Headline Review £7.99) Two
college professors fail to cope with the wiles of their wilful 16-year-old
daughter in a funny, snappily written campus novel
Imperium by Robert Harris (Arrow £6.99) Decadent republican Rome and
treacherous politics form the backdrop for Harris’s compelling portrait of
how Cicero clawed his way to the top
Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka (Fig Tree £16.99) This engaging and
shrewd story about immigrant workers in Britain skilfully modulates between
warm comedy and reminders of sombre actualities
Restless by William Boyd (Bloomsbury £7.99) A gripping and atmospheric
novel based on a daughter’s discovery that her mother was a wartime spy
Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann (Quercus £12.99) Delicately
recreates the lives of two geniuses of the German Enlightenment – Alexander
von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Gauss
When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson (Picador £12.99) Wisdom and
waspish humour abound in this portrayal of a north London family that
unravels when a son bolts before his wedding day
The Observations by Jane Harris (Faber £7.99) A compelling take on the
19th-century “sensational” novel, located in a run-down Scottish mansion
When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale (Picador £16.99) Powerful
evocation of the triumphs, jealousies and fears of childhood, as a
nine-year-old tries to hold his family together
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Penguin £7.99) Lyrical
descriptions and bleak comedy distinguish this postcolonial tale that shifts
from the Himalayas to ; 2006 Man Booker winner
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (Sceptre £7.99) A touching and funny
novel that brilliantly captures the awkwardness of its 13-year-old hero as
he fumbles his way through adolescence
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory (Harper £6.99) Atmospheric
evocation of Henry VIII’s court, and the woman who destroyed two of his
queens
The Dig by John Preston (Viking £16.99) The excavations at Sutton Hoo
in Suffolk during the long, hot summer of 1939 bring smouldering emotions to
the surface
The Damned Utd by David Peace (Faber £7.99) Absorbingly conjures up the
highs and lows of the fateful 44 days in 1974 when Brian Clough managed
Leeds United
The Yacoubian Building Alaa Al Aswany (Fourth Estate £14.99) This
engrossing and controversial Egyptian novel, about the inhabitants of one
Cairo building, boldly lays into a society dominated by bribery and
corruption
Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett (Harper £7.99) Sir
Thomas More’s foster daughter and Hans Holbein are at the centre of this
vivid portrayal of 16th-century England
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney (Quercus £7.99) Cracking
storytelling and finely drawn landscapes combine in Penney’s Costa
award-winning first novel located in the frozen wastes of 1860s Canada
Redemption Falls by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker £17.99) Set
during the American civil war, this action-packed novel from the author of
The Star of the Sea follows the fortunes of a young Irish immigrant as she
searches for her brother
Sovereign by CJ Sansom (Pan £7.99) Hunchbacked lawyer-detective Matthew
Shardlake faces his most scary challenge yet in a dank, autumnal York
awaiting a state visit from Henry VIII
Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen (Bantam £12.99) Zany characters and a
kayaking trip from hell feature in an energetic tale from the master of the
screwball thriller
The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin (Faber £7.99) As splendidly
original mystery novel that atmospherically resurrects all the picturesque
panoply and twisty intrigue of 19th-century Istanbul
Special Assignments by Boris Akunin (Weidenfeld £12.99) Murder and
swindling in 19th-century Moscow, in two atmospheric, craftily plotted tales
featuring the inimitable Erast Fandorin
The Lost Luggage Porter by Andrew Martin (Faber £7.99) More
railway-related skulduggery in another of Martin’s immensely likable
Edwardian series
Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris (Heinemann £11.99) Reveals the
traumatic events in his past that made Lecter a monster
Through a Glass Darkly by Donna Leon (Arrow £6.99) Commissario Brunetti
heads to the island of Murano, with its glass factories and furnaces, in a
scorching Venetian murder mystery
The Scent of the Night by Andrea Camilleri (Picador £6.99) A hostage
situation and several billion missing lire in another Sicilian adventure
featuring the food-loving Inspector Montalbano
Vienna Blood by Frank Tallis (Arrow £7.99) A serial killer wreaks
exotic havoc in 1902 Vienna, conjured up with dazzling immediacy in this
psychological thriller
Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand by Fred Vargas (Harvill Secker
£11.99) The hunt for a fiendish killer takes Commissaire Adamsberg around
France and Canada in the latest book from this satisfyingly quirky novelist
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith (Polygon
£12.99) Mma Makutsi is restless and Mr JLB Matekoni gets involved in the
agency’s work investigating an errant husband. As soothing as a summer
breeze
NON-FICTION
BIOGRAPHY
Leni by Steven Bach (Little, Brown £25) How guilty was she? This
gripping biography of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s favourite film-maker,
weighs the evidence
Walt Disney: The Biography by Neal Gabler (Aurum £25) Gabler’s life of
Disney is compendious, smart and uncynical – and the best book on him yet
written
Stanley by Tim Jeal (Faber £25) Not just an absorbing read, but a feat
of advocacy in defence of the much-maligned Victorian explorer
Wild Mary: A Life of Mary Wesley by Patrick Marnham (Vintage £8.99) The
bestselling novelist’s risqué private life is uncovered in this engrossing
biography
Otherwise Engaged: The Life of Alan Bates by Donald Spoto (Hutchinson
£18.99) The life and loves of the great British film actor
You Cannot Live As I Have Lived and Not End up Like This by Terence Blacker (Ebury
£12.99) Sex, drugs, prostitutes, celebrity – the wicked, wicked ways of
Willie Donaldson, the creator of Henry Root
William Wilberforce by William Hague (HarperPress £25) Hague recounts
the career of the great antislavery campaigner with enthusiasm and skill
Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector by Mick
Brown (Bloomsbury £18.99) This absorbing look at the record producer
makes clear just how brilliant he once was and how flaky he is now
Einstein by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster £25) A readable,
dramatic and revelatory life, based on a mass of new letters
Ava Gardner by Lee Server (Bloomsbury £8.99) A thrilling biography of
the famous Hollywood beauty, detailing torrid times with Frank Sinatra and
Howard Hughes
The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles by
Martin Gayford (Penguin £8.99) The story of art’s most infamous
houseshare
HISTORY
Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 by David Kynaston (Bloomsbury £25) A
beguiling inside look at life in postwar Britain, complete with asides from
Bill Wyman, Joan Bakewell and Steven Berkoff
The Trader, The Owner, The Slave by James Walvin (Cape £17.99) An
original approach to the slave-trade story, as seen through the experiences
of three very different individuals
The Pursuit of Glory: Europe, 1648-1815 by Tim Blanning (Allen Lane
£30) The history book of the year to date, a sweeping reassessment of
early-modern Europe
Bomber Boys: Fighting Back 1940-1945 by Patrick Bishop (HarperPress
£20) The story of the forgotten combatants of the second world war, the
bomber crews who took the fight to Germany
The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 by Antony Beevor
(Phoenix £12.99) Highly acclaimed both here and in Spain, this new edition
of Beevor’s 1982 book makes telling use of recently opened archives
London in the Nineteenth Century by Jerry White (Cape £20) Vivid,
vital, detail-rich history of the city at the time of its greatest expansion
MEMOIR
Seminary Boy by John Cornwell (HarperPerennial £7.99) The subject –
life in a Catholic seminary in the 1950s – may seem obscure, but the result
is unputdownable
In My Father’s House by Miranda Seymour (Simon & Schuster
£14.99) Seymour’s account of life with her monstrous upper-class father is
both sad and strangely comic
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin (Picador £16.99)
Zimbabwe’s recent implosion, movingly viewed through the prism of Godwin’s
own history and a long-kept family secret
Rainbow’s End by Lauren St John (H Hamilton £17.99) A
girls-eye-view of life in 1970s Rhodesia: as powerful as Alexandra Fuller’s
classic Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Don’t You Know Who I Am? by Piers Morgan (Ebury £17.99) Love him
or loathe him, former Mirror editor Morgan tells excellent and compulsively
readable tales from the celebrity catwalk
An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina (Bloomsbury £7.99) The hero of the
film Hotel Rwanda reveals what really happened
The Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez (Hodder £12.99) The
charming account of the author’s attempt to set up a beauty academy in
postTaliban Afghanistan
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson (Black Swan
£7.99) Bryson’s droll account of his childhood in Eisenhower-era America
Grow Up by Keith Allen (Ebury £18.99) The memoirs of Lily Allen’s
unruly dad, chockablock with appallingly entertaining anecdotes and bad
behaviour
CURRENT AFFAIRS
The Islamist by Ed Husein (Penguin £8.99) British Islamic
fundamentalism from within written by a man who’s been there and come out
the other side
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (Black Swan £8.99) One of the
books of the moment, a forthright attack on religion by a scientist who
thoroughly enjoys fighting the good fight
God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion by Christopher Hitchens (Atlantic
£17.99) Hitchens’s own contribution to the faith debate, full of
characteristic vigour and good jokes
What’s Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way by Nick Cohen (Fourth
Estate £12.99) This analysis of the follies of fellow left-wingers over 9/11
and the Iraq war makes compulsive reading
Infidel: My Life by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Free Press £12.99) Intrepid
champion of Islamic reform looks back on her troubled upbringing
The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock (Penguin £8.99) The creator of
Gaia offers a vision so bleak it’s almost cheerful
Occupational Hazards by Rory Stewart (Picador £8.99) A devastating
account of the author’s role as an acting governor in Iraq during 2003-4
GENERAL
Magic Bus by Rory MacLean (Penguin £8.99) A hugely entertaining journey
back along the hippie trail from Istanbul to India
Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski (Allen Lane £20) Renowned
reporter and travel writer retraces his early steps in India, China and
Africa
Achtung Schweinehund! by Harry Pearson (Little, Brown £9.99)
Irresistibly funny and nostalgic book about Airfix kits, commando mags and
the small war-gamer locked inside every adult male
The Tony Years by Craig Brown (Ebury £7.99) Blair’s years in office, as
seen through the eyes of Britain’s wittiest satirist
The Cloudspotter’s Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney (Sceptre £7.99)
Hugely informative look at all things nebular. To be read lying on one’s
back, outside.
Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins (Ebury £10.99) Nick Hornbyesque
account of Simkins’s shockingly poor career as an amateur cricketer and his
lifelong obssession with the game
The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen (Nicholas Brearley £12.99) How
the internet and blogging are undermining informed opinion and killing our
culture
Better by Atul Gawande (Profile £12.99) A doctor writes . . . with
verve, wit and insight
Penguins Stopped Play by Harry Thompson (J Murray £7.99) A village
cricket team’s harebrained attempt to play a game on all seven continents
Theatre Writings/Profiles by Kenneth Tynan (Nick Hern £20/£14.99)
Tynan’s peerless prose, collected in new editions of his most important
writing
Buy
the books here
The Woods by Harlan Coben... Excellent.
Rebecca Kingsley, Edinburgh, Scotland
By far the most engaging and "can't-put-it-down" book I've read in a long time is "Angel" by Cindy Mellor (www.cindymellor.com). Never leave for your hols without it
Paul Bradney, Halesowen, West Midlands
Hi Marcos - where did you purchase the book from as I can't seem to find it. thanks. L
Lisa Agasee, London, United Kingdom
"PUENTES VOLADOS (flying bridges) is the best book I´ve read this year. It is written in spanish by a genious called Carlos Clavijo. The name of the publisher: Tropismos
marcos andreu, Liverpool, United Kingdom