We Are Now Beginning Our Descent
By James Meek
Canongate £16.99, 304 pages
FT bookshop price: £13.59

As well as being the bestselling author of The People’s Act of Love, James Meek is a journalist – more specifically, a war reporter. As his author blurb says: “In the autumn of 2001 he reported for The Guardian from Afghanistan on the war against the Taliban and the liberation of Kabul.”