Fountain and Tomb - Naguib Mahfouz

A disorder peculiar to the country - Ken Kalfus

To each other's regret, both Marshall and Joyce survived 9/11. But it looks unlikely that they will survive the apparently endless war of their divorce. Both refuse to move out of the apartment, on their lawyers' orders, and neither is above using the children as foot soldiers in their battle. They will use any psychological weapon that comes to hand - sex; money; friends; relations - to gain an advantage that might prove decisive. As the months pass, the domestic skirmishes begin to echo the international. In both theatres of war, events are becoming crazier, but people tend to break before nations do. Ken Kalfus's new novel is a brilliantly insightful and compelling portrait of what our modern state of perpetual war does on the home front.

The Sunset Limited - Cormac McCarthy

A startling encounter on a New York subway platform leads two strangers to a run-down tenement where a life or death decision must be made.

In that small apartment, “Black” and “White,” as the two men are known, begin a conversation that leads each back through his own history, mining the origins of two fundamentally opposing world views. White is a professor whose seemingly enviable existence of relative ease has left him nonetheless in despair. Black, an ex-con and ex-addict, is the more hopeful of the men–though he is just as desperate to convince White of the power of faith as White is desperate to deny it.

Their aim is no less than this: to discover the meaning of life.

Deft, spare, and full of artful tension, The Sunset Limited is a beautifully crafted, consistently thought-provoking, and deceptively intimate work by one of the most insightful writers of our time.

Villages - John Updike

John Updike’s twenty-first novel, a bildungsroman, follows its hero, Owen Mackenzie, from his birth in the semi-rural Pennsylvania town of Willow to his retirement in the rather geriatric community of Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts. In between these two settlements comes Middle Falls, Connecticut, where Owen, an early computer programmer, founds with a partner, Ed Mervine, the successful firm of E-O Data, which is housed in an old gun factory on the Chunkaunkabaug River. Owen’s education (Bildung) is not merely technical but liberal, as the humanity of his three villages, especially that of their female citizens, works to disengage him from his youthful innocence. As a child he early felt an abyss of calamity beneath the sunny surface quotidian, yet also had a dreamlike sense of leading a charmed existence. The women of his life, including his wives, Phyllis and Julia, shed what light they can. At one juncture he reflects, “How lovely she is, naked in the dark! How little men deserve the beauty and mercy of women!” His life as a sexual being merges with the communal shelter of villages: “A village is woven of secrets, of truths better left unstated, of houses with less window than opaque wall.”

This delightful, witty, passionate novel runs from the Depression era to the early twenty-first century.

Dr. Yes - Colin Bateman

You don't say no to Dr. Yes, the charismatic plastic surgeon on the fast track to fame and fortune. But when the wife of obscure and paranoid crime writer Augustine Wogan disappears shortly after entering his exclusive clinic, the Small Bookseller with No Name is persuaded to investigate. As fatherhood approaches, our intrepid hero is interested only in a quick buck and the chance to exploit a neglected writer, but he soon finds himself up to his neck in murder, make-up and madness - and face to face with the most gruesome serial killer since the last one.

The Tenderness of Wolves - Stef Penny

1867, Canada: as winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a man is brutally murdered and a 17-year old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead man's cabin head north towards the forest and the tundra beyond. In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the township - journalists, Hudson's Bay Company men, trappers, traders - but do they want to solve the crime or exploit it? One-by-one the assembled searchers set out from Dove River, pursuing the tracks across a desolate landscape home only to wild animals, madmen and fugitives, variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for 17 years, a Native American culture, and a fortune in stolen furs before the snows settle and cover the tracks of the past for good. In an astonishingly assured debut, Stef Penney deftly waves adventure, suspense, revelation and humour into a panoramic historical romance, an exhilarating thriller, a keen murder mystery and ultimately, with the sheer scope and quality of her storytelling, one of the books of the year.

The Death Instict - Jed Rubenfeld

A spellbinding literary thriller about terror, war, greed, and the darkest secrets of the human soul, by the author of the million-copy bestseller, The Interpretation of Murder.

September 16, 1920. Under a clear blue September sky, a quarter ton of explosives is detonated in a deadly attack on Wall Street. Fear comes to the streets of New York.

Witnessing the blast are war veteran Stratham Younger, his friend James Littlemore of the New York Police Department, and beautiful French radiochemist Colette Rousseau. A series of inexplicable attacks on Colette, a secret buried in her past, and a mysterious trail of evidence lead Younger, Littlemore, and Rousseau on a thrilling international and psychological journey - from Paris to Prague, from the Vienna home of Dr Sigmund Freud to the corridors of power in Washington, DC, and ultimately to the hidden depths of our most savage instincts. As the seemingly disjointed pieces of Younger and Littlemore's investigations come together, the two uncover the shocking truth about the bombing - a truth that threatens to shake their world to its foundations.

At Home: A short history of private life - Bill Bryson

The irresistible book by Bill Bryson which does for the history of the way we live what A Short History of Nearly Everything did for science.

The imperfectionists - Tom Rachman

The English-language newspaper was founded in Rome in the 1950s, a product of passion and a multi-millionaire s fancy. Over fifty years, its eccentricities earned a place in readers hearts around the globe. But now, circulation is down, the paper lacks a website, and the future looks bleak.

Still, those involved in the publication seem to barely notice. The obituary writer is too busy avoiding work. The editor-in-chief is pondering sleeping with an old flame. The obsessive reader is intent on finishing every old edition, leaving her trapped in the past. And the dog-crazy publisher seems less interested in his struggling newspaper than in his magnificent basset hound, Schopenhauer.

The Imperfectionists interweaves the stories of eleven unusual and endearing characters who depend on the paper. Often at odds, they are united when the focus of their lives begins to fall apart. Funny and moving, the novel is about endings the end of life, the end of sexual desire, the end of the era of newspapers and about what might rise afterward.

Where the Bodies are Buried - Chris Brookmyre

Detective Catherine McLeod was always taught that in Glasgow, they don't do whodunit. They do score-settling. They do vendettas. They do petty revenge. They do can't-miss-whodunit. It's a lesson that has served her well, but Glasgow is also a dangerous place to make assumptions. Either way she looks at it, she recognises that the discovery of a dead drug-dealer in a back alley is merely a portent of further deaths to come. Elsewhere in the city, aspiring actress Jasmine Sharp is reluctantly - and incompetently - earning a crust working for her uncle Jim's private investigation business. When Jim goes missing, Jasmine has to take on the investigator mantle for real, and her only lead points to Glen Fallan, a gangland enforcer and professional assassin whose reputation is rendered only slightly less terrifying by having been dead for twenty years. Cautiously tracing an accomplished killer's footsteps, Jasmine stumbles into a web of corruption and decades-hidden secrets that could tear apart an entire police force - if she can stay alive long enough to tell the tale.

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives - Leonard Mlodinow

I do feel a little sheepish recommending two science books in a row - not to mention surprised at myself, for last week's recommendation, Quantum, contains passages of rather hard science, and I thought that I could do with a break as much as you.

But this book is different. It is in the nature of science books to contain science, and this is no exception; but it is unusual for them to contain humour and highly readable prose - not to mention very useful and practical insights which will help you live your life with a greater understanding of the world about you.

People, as Leonard Mlodinow reminds us, are not always that smart, and in fact our mental processes can lead us to the wrong conclusions. Try this one yourself: ask someone if there are more six-letter words in the English language whose fifth letter is N, or more six-letter words ending in "-ing"? You will discover that most people say there are more words ending in "ing" but just think about it for a bit.

That might not sound like a problem in probability, but it is related to it. And the reach of this book is extraordinary. Read it carefully and you may discover how to start a winning lottery syndicate (you need a mathematically ignorant lottery provider, like the Virginia State lottery in 1992), win with profitable consistency at roulette (and, if you're a casino owner, how to stop someone winning with profitable consistency), evaluate evidence in a criminal trial correctly, detect frauds and bullshitters, not give up when your manuscript has been rejected by 27 publishers, and assess the veracity of Bill Clinton's tax returns for the past 13 years. (I'll spare you the bother of that one: thanks to the careful application of Benford's Law, he's probably honest.) As Mlodinow quotes a Harvard professor: "Our brains are just not wired to do probability problems very well," but this is just the book to help us to do them better.

The charm of the book also resides in the quality of the writing. It is a good idea to use humour to help the mathematical medicine slip down, and Mlodinow does it as well as I've ever seen it done. There are bits that make you laugh out loud, but they never obscure the facts he is trying to convey. "If psychics really existed, you'd see them in places like [Monte Carlo], hooting and dancing and pushing wheelbarrows of cash down the street, and not on websites calling themselves 'Zelda Who Knows All and Sees All' and offering 24-hour free online love advice along with about 1.2 million other web psychics (according to Google)." He has, according to the inside cover of the book, written for MacGyver and Star Trek: The Next Generation, which may have something to do with this.

Another remarkable thing about the book, which may also have something to do with his extra-scientific writing experience, is that he is not simply content to leave it at the maths, and scoff at the scientifically illiterate. He goes on to explain why it is that we often get things wrong - and why it may be advantageous for us to do so. One experiment seemed to prove that if you think you're in control of your environment, you'll live longer - even if you have, in reality, no such control. And this is what gambling is all about: our belief that we can see patterns in chaos. (Actually, the question whether there is in fact such a thing as chaos or true randomness is one tackled by Mlodinow.)

Even given this, the book still manages to surprise and delight until the very end. It is also - and this is something you really don't get in other science books, particularly the mathematically inclined - moving. Bracketed by stories about his parents' survival of the Holocaust, this is a work which goes beyond its brief to tell us how to live our lives in hope and knowledge. I do not exaggerate. When Beckett said that all he could hope to do was "fail better", he was more right than he knew. "Even a coin weighted toward failure will sometimes land on success," says Mlodinow. So don't give up.

Divorced, Beheaded, Died...: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks - Kevin Flude

The tales of the various monarchs of Britain are some of the most interesting in our history. From Henry VIII and his six wives and Edward VIII's abdication to some of our lesser known and mythical monarchs such as King Arthur, "Divorced, Beheaded, Died..." takes you on a gallop through the history of Britain's monarchs from the legendary King Brutus, through the houses of Tudor and Stuart, and up to the Windsors, including the major monarchs of Scotland and Wales. Discover the sticky end that befell Edward II, the story of the teenage queen of England who reigned for less than a fortnight, and find out whether Macbeth really was a king of Scotland. Presented in an accessible, chronological format, "Divorced, Beheaded, Died..." will fill all those gaps in your history knowledge, together with some fascinating and amusing facts that are guaranteed to entertain any history enthusiast.

The Blasphemer - Nigel Farndale

On its way to the Galapagos Islands, a light aircraft ditches into the sea. As the water floods through the cabin, zoologist Daniel Kennedy faces an impossible choice - should he save himself, or Nancy, the woman he loves? In a parallel narrative, it is 1917 and Daniel's great grandfather Andrew is preparing to go over the top at Passchendaele. He, too, will have his courage tested, and must live with the moral consequences of his actions. Back in London, the atheistic Daniel is wrestling with something his 'cold philosophy' cannot explain - something unearthly he thought he saw while swimming for help in the Pacific. But before he can make sense of it, the past must collapse into the present, and both he and Andrew must prove themselves capable of altruism, and deserving of forgiveness. "The Blasphemer" is a story about conditional love, cowardice and the possibility of redemption - and what happens to a man of science when forced to question his certainties. It is a novel of rare depth, empathy and ambition that sweeps from the trenches of the First World War to the terrorist-besieged streets of London today: a novel that will speak to the head as well as the heart of any reader.

Quantum - Manjit Kumar

'Kumar is an accomplished writer who knows how to separate the excitement of the chase from the sometimes impenetrable mathematics. In Quantum he tells the story of the conflict between two of the most powerful intellects of their day: the hugely famous Einstein and the less well-known but just as brilliant Dane, Niels Bohr.'

Ambush at Fort Bragg - Tom Wolfe

He's been called "the inventor of the New Journalism--and possessor of the age's most distinctive prose style." Now in this original novella, serialized to critical acclaim in Rolling Stone magazine in December 1996, Tom Wolfe, author of the bestseller The Bonfire of the Vanities, turns his penetrating eye and devastating wit to the world of TV news...

As the producer of a prime-time TV newsmagazine, Irv Durtscher fancies himself the Federico Fellini of television journalism. For who else can draw 50 million viewers, satisfy the network's gluttony for profits, and advance the cause of social justice? The only problem is that no one else recognizes Irv's genius. Instead, all the accolades go to the blonde bombshell anchor who won't give balding, near-sighted Irv the time of day. But suddenly Irv has a chance to break the most sensational story of his career--one that will surely catapult him into the national spotlight and into Madame Bombshell's heart. For months the wheels of justice have ground to a halt as three soldiers from Fort Bragg have categorically denied that they savagely beat and murdered a member of their company because he was gay. Now, Irv Durtscher, self-proclaimed soul of a soulless industry, is poised to expose the truth. With a fortune in surveillance equipment, he has infiltrated a bar near Fort Bragg, in the hopes that the unwitting soldiers will hang themselves on videotape. What he gets is pure dynamite. But Irv's story won't be complete until he arranges to ambush the three young toughs and show them the footage. What happens when one of New York's media elite confronts the Lords of Testosterone?...not what you think.

Ambush at Fort Bragg is classic Wolfe--a blistering send-up of one man's drive for fame and glory and the lengths to which the media will go to showcase their version of the truth. This is Wolfe at his very best--timely, relevant, and right on the money about many aspects of 90s America: the media, the military, the South, discrimination, and homophobia.

Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

The acclaimed new novel from the author of The Corrections.

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul - the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbour who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter - environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, family man - she was doing her small part to build a better world.

But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz - outré rocker and Walter's old college friend and rival - still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to poor Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become "a very different kind of neighbour," an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of too much liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's intensely realized characters, as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond

Life isn't fair--here's why: Since 1500, Europeans have, for better and worse, called the tune that the world has danced to. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond explains the reasons why things worked out that way. It is an elemental question, and Diamond is certainly not the first to ask it. However, he performs a singular service by relying on scientific fact rather than specious theories of European genetic superiority. Diamond, a professor of physiology at UCLA, suggests that the geography of Eurasia was best suited to farming, the domestication of animals and the free flow of information. The more populous cultures that developed as a result had more complex forms of government and communication--and increased resistance to disease. Finally, fragmented Europe harnessed the power of competitive innovation in ways that China did not. (For example, the Europeans used the Chinese invention of gunpowder to create guns and subjugate the New World.) Diamond's book is complex and a bit overwhelming. But the thesis he methodically puts forth--examining the "positive feedback loop" of farming, then domestication, then population density, then innovation, and on and on--makes sense. Written without bias, Guns, Germs, and Steel is good global history.

Living Dolls - Natasha Walter

Empowerment, liberation, choice. Once the watchwords of feminism, these terms have now been co-opted by a society that sells women an airbrushed, highly sexualised and increasingly narrow vision of femininity. While the opportunities available to women may have expanded, the ambitions of many young girls are in reality limited by a culture that sees women's sexual allure as their only passport to success. At the same time we are encouraged to believe that the inequality we observe all around us is born of innate biological differences rather than social factors. Drawing on a wealth of research and personal interviews, Natasha Walter, author of the groundbreaking THE NEW FEMINISM and one of Britain's most incisive cultural commentators, gives us a straight-talking, passionate and important book that makes us look afresh at women and girls, at sexism and femininity, today.

The Other Hand - Chris Cleave

We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it.

Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this:

It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific.

The story starts there, but the book doesn't.

And it's what happens afterwards that is most important.

Once you have read it, you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds.

How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions - Francis Wheen

'A brilliant, eccentric book.' Observer Book of the Year 'Wheen has a Swiftian relish for exposing the cant that attends the 'new rationality'!bullshit's enema number one.' Tim Adams, Observer 'Hugely enjoyable!delightful reading.' Ferdinand Mount, Sunday Times 'Lightly and often hilariously told as it is, this book does make it clear that respect for truth and reason is retreating and mumbo-jumbo has a new confidence everywhere!This amusing, intelligent and elegantly argued book is as good a demonstration of the values it defends as could be imagined.' Philip Hensher, Spectator 'This book is a manifesto for rescuing the greatest philosophical movement of the past millennium. You have a choice: either read it or, pre-emptively shred your brain in anticipation of the coming darkness.' Independent on Sunday 'This book is a manifesto for rescuing the greatest philosophical movement of the past millennium. You have a choice: either read it or, pre-emptively shred your brain in anticipation of the coming darkness.' Independent on Sunday 'Such an entertaining writer. Wheen is, one senses, a good man to go tiger-hunting with; it is no less fun to watch him shooting fish in a barrel.' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph 'Very funny!a brilliant satiric essay.' Will Cohu, Daily Telegraph 'If Wheen's book succeeds in starting to shift the balance between reason and sentimentality, between lavish prompts of the heart and the colder ones of the brain, between rigorous analysis and twaddled cloaked in obscurity, then I think the ghost of Jefferson will have every right, every reason, to be proud of him.' David McKie, Guardian 'This book is a well-informed polemic that most enjoyably challenges you to think. Wheen cuts a Jonathan Swift-like swathe through the morass of tosh, hogwash, and it could be added, bullshit that threatens to clog our minds.' Peter Lewis, Daily Mail Francis Wheen is the intelligent sceptic's intelligent sceptic, and How Mumbo-Jumbo conquered The World casts a cold eye on fads in government, management and health that have swept the Anglo-Saxon world in the past 20 years. The urge to believe is unstoppable in most of mankind. The abundance of stupidity in this book is enough to make you pine for Ian Paisley.' Jeremy Paxman, Mail on Sunday 'One of the best reads you are likely to read this winter, full of spark and fine writing. FT Francis Wheen also writes about Samuel Huntington in the Independent magazine's 'Heroes & Villains' column. His piece on 'mad theories making a come back and politicians helping' ran in the Sunday Times News Review.

The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Anthony and Gloria are the essence of Jazz Age glamour. A brilliant and magnetic couple, they fling themselves at life with an energy that is thrilling. New York is a playground where they dance and drink for days on end. Their marriage is a passionate theatrical performance; they are young, rich, alive and lovely and they intend to inherit the earth.

But as money becomes tight, their marriage becomes impossible. And with their inheritance still distant, Anthony ang Gloria must grow up and face reality; they may be beautiful but they are also damned.

How Bad Are Bananas? - Mike Berners-Lee

Packed full of information yet always entertaining. From text messages and plastic bags to wars and volcanoes, How Bad Are Bananas? has the carbon answers we need

The Killer Inside Me - Jim Thompson

Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas. The worst thing most people can say against him is that he's a little slow and a little boring. But, then, most people don't know about the sickness--the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger. The sickness that is about to surface again.

An underground classic since its publication in 1952, The Killer Inside Me is the book that made Jim Thompson's name synonymous with the roman noir.

I Predict a Riot - Colin Bateman

Walter has a rubbish job, so has Margaret. But when they meet through a dating agency, neither is who they seem. Margaret's married for a start, and Walter's encounter with her husband, Billy, leaves him black and blue. Billy's a dodgy accountant for politician and racketeer Pink Harrison, who is about to come unstuck.

Superintendent James Mallow is determined to nail Pink. Meanwhile Redmond O'Boyle, professional terrorist and occasional birdwatcher, is languishing in a Colombian jail, and his only way out is to kill himself and trust in reincarnation.

Imperial Bedrooms - Bret Easton Ellis

In 1985, Bret Easton Ellis shocked, stunned and disturbed with Less Than Zero, his ‘extraordinarily accomplished first novel’ (New Yorker), successfully chronicling the frightening consequences of unmitigated hedonism within the ranks of the ethically bereft youth of 80s Los Angeles. Twenty-five years later, Ellis returns to those same characters – to Clay and the band of infamous teenagers whose lives weave sporadically through his – but now, they face an even greater period of disaffection: their own middle age.

Clay seems to have moved on – he’s become a successful screenwriter – but when he returns from New York to Los Angeles, to help cast his new movie, he’s soon drifting through a long-familiar circle. Blair, his vulnerable former girlfriend, is now married to Trent – still a bisexual philanderer – and their Beverly Hills parties attract excessive levels of fame and fortune. Clay’s childhood friend Julian is a recovering addict running an ultra-discreet, high-class escort service, and their old dealer Rip, reconstructed and face-lifted nearly beyond recognition, is involved in activities far more sinister than those of his notorious past.

After a meeting with a gorgeous but talentless actress determined to win a role in his movie, Clay finds himself connected with Kelly Montrose, a producer whose gruesomely violent death is suddenly very much the talk of the town. As his seemingly endless proclivity for betrayal leads him to be drawn further and further into this ominous case it looks like he will face far more serious consequences than ever before.

Invisible -- Paul auster

Sinuously constructed in four interlocking parts, Invisible opens in New York City in the spring of 1967 when twenty-year-old Adam Walker, an aspiring poet and studen at Columbia University meets the enigmatic Frenchman Rudolf Born, and his silent and seductive girlfriend Margot. Before long, Walker finds himself caught in a perverse triangle that leads to a sudden, shocking act of violence that will alter the course of his life. Three different narrators tell the story, as it travels in time from 1967 to 2007 and moves from New York to Paris and to a remote Caribbean island in a story of unbridled sexual hunger and a relentless quest for justice. With uncompromising insight, Auster takes us to the shadowy borderland between truth and memory, authorship and identity to produce a work of unforgettable power that confirms his reputation as one of America's most spectacularly inventive writers.

The Castle -- Franz Kafka

The Castle is the story of K., the unwanted Land Surveyor who is never to be admitted to the Castle nor accepted in the village, and yet cannot go home. As he encounters dualities of certainty and doubt, hope and fear, and reason and nonsense, K.’s struggles in the absurd, labyrinthine world where he finds himself seem to reveal an inexplicable truth about the nature of existence. Kafka began The Castle in 1922 and it was never finished, yet this, the last of his three great novels, draws fascinating conclusions that make it feel strangely complete.

The Unnamed -- Joshua Ferris

Tim Farnsworth is a handsome, healthy man, ageing with the grace of a matinée idol. He loves his work. He loves his family. He loves his kitchen. And then one day he stands up and walks out on all of it. He cannot stop walking. And, as his body propels him relentlessly forward, deep into the unfamiliar outer reaches of the city, he begins to realise he is moving further and further from his old self, seemingly unable to turn back and retrieve what he has lost.

In his extraordinary novel Joshua Ferris delineates with great tenderness and a rare and inimitable wit the devastating story of a life taken for granted and what happens when that life is torn away without explanation or warning. The Unnamed is no less than a shimmering reflection of our times, of the lives we aspire to and the terrifying realisation of what is beyond our control.

Field Grey - Philip Kerr

'A man doesn't work for his enemies unless he has little choice in the matter.' So says Bernie Gunther. It is 1954 and Bernie is in Cuba. Tiring of his increasingly dangerous work spying on Meyer Lansky, Bernie acquires a boat and a beautiful companion and quits the island. But the US Navy has other ideas, and soon he finds himself in a place with which he is all too familiar - a prison cell. After exhaustive questioning, he is flown back to Berlin and yet another prison cell with a proposition: work for French intelligence or hang for murder. The job is simple: he is to meet and greet POWs returning to Germany and to look out for one in particular, a French war criminal and member of the French SS who has been posing as a German Wehrmacht officer. The French are anxious to catch up with this man and deal with him in their own ruthless way. But Bernie's past as a German POW in Russia is about to catch up with him - in a way he could never have foreseen. Bernie Gunther's seventh outing delivers more of the fast-paced and quick-witted action that we have come to expect from Philip Kerr. Set in Cuba, a Soviet POW camp, Paris and Berlin, and ranging over a period of twenty years from the Thirties to the Fifties.

This Is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper

Poor Judd Foxman returns home early to find his wife in bed with his boss - in the act. He now faces the twin threats of both divorce and unemployment. His misery is compounded further with the sudden death of his father. He is then asked to come and 'sit Shiva' for his newly deceased parent with his angry, screwed-up and somewhat estranged brothers and sisters in his childhood home. It is there he must confront who he really is and - more importantly - who he can become. Funny, moving, powerful and poignant.

My poor memory