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An absorbing historical novel that enjoyably reinvents the few familiar facts about the playwright
As a man balloons into an obese media-celebrated freak raddled with maladies, his family warp their lives around his gargantuan body
The first mayor of London analyses his political career with unsmiling humour
A highly sympathetic assessment that clearly places the country in the context of east Asian economic history
This novel about four aspiring actors has plenty of fun, intrigue and theatrical fluorishes
A poisonous letter haunts a retired man, four decades after sending it to a former lover and an old friend
A widow takes a pair of lodgers to fill a shortfall in the rent while a gay and vain banker marries a plain Betty
A child’s naive commentary on family disputes forms a lyrical social chronicle
A highly readable ‘biography’ about Jerusalem, starting from its Abrahamic origins around 1,000BC
A Moscow correspondent gives a probing, sobering view of a powerful – and dysfunctional – Russia
This final instalment to the Kurt Wallander mystery series is more gritty procedural than spy thriller
A nuanced and darkly comic tale that probes a small community’s ethics to illuminate wider conflicts of aspiration, dignity and circumstance
A sympathetically imagined novel about Herman Melville’ life that deftly navigates intense relationships, and fiery characters who weigh ambition and regret
This remarkable history of the table of elements cross-references art, literature, religion and politics
Curious characters and a sinuous plot set the tone for this novel that examines the anxious social milieu of Nazi Vienna in 1939
Reza Aslan’s ‘Tablet & Pen’ offers English translations of a wealth of the region’s literature from the 20th century
A wealthy art-lover becomes entangled in the mysterious killing of an artist’s daughter
This heartfelt memoir explores the region’s martial and religious history
Tim Wu’s ‘The Master Switch’ examines the threat of innovation to established companies
An engineer comes to terms with the direction of his desires as he transports the contents of a Parisian cemetery
EC Osondu’s promising debut story collection ‘Voice of America’ is populated by a varied cast
David Gardner’s ‘Last Chance’ is an urgent and rigorous analysis of the west’s disastrous policies in the Middle East
Zadie Smith et al weigh the creative, immersive, vital activity in ‘Stop What You’re Doing And Read This!’
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