An entertaining tale of grit, fecklessness and Northern Soul
Rare Singles, a lively and good-natured new novel by Benjamin Myers, brings an ageing US soul singer together with an English superfan
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Rare Singles, a lively and good-natured new novel by Benjamin Myers, brings an ageing US soul singer together with an English superfan
In Strange Relations, Ralf Webb re-evaluates four great writers: Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, John Cheever and James Baldwin
Eley Williams is one of Britain’s most feted young novelists, but the stories in Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good can verge on the twee
In Coming of Age, Lucy Foulkes explains why teenagers should be allowed to take risks – and shouldn’t be overprotected
Michael Nott’s unsanctimonious biography of Thom Gunn, A Cool Queer Life, draws out his complexities and contradictions
Ed Simon’s Devil’s Contract is a highly impassioned but overambitious attempt to unpack the Faustian bargain over 2000 years
Sheila Curran Bernard’s Bring Judgment Day rescues the real Lead Belly from the murderous hypocrisy of Jim Crow’s America
Mary and the Rabbit Dream, a magnificent debut novel by Noémi Kiss-Deáki, fictionalises the strange 18th-century tale of Mary Toft
For years, the comedian’s mother pursued an affair with a golf pro – as painfully, hilariously explored in Baddiel’s My Family
After giving constitutional advice in war-torn countries such as Iraq, CL Skach puts forward ideas for a new society in How to Be a Citizen
Time Runs like a River, Emma Carlisle’s latest book, uses gentle illustrations and lilting rhymes to foster a surprisingly deep message
Rat City, a superb scientific history, shows how John B Calhoun’s pioneering research became influential – horribly, and wrongly, so
Eerie light, chopped-up bodies, secret love – Napalm in the Heart, Pol Guasch’s debut novel, tells a smooth and lively tale
Nikkitha Bakshani’s Ghost Chilli has a loveable, wry protagonist – though her misfortunes seem astonishingly relentless
Austin Duffy’s Cross is centred on a Catholic town near the Irish border in the 1990s. It’s ludicrously caricatural, and hopelessly written
Rebecca Watson’s I Will Crash, about a young woman’s grief for her brother, seems superficially ambitious but, in reality, it’s anything but
Alexandre Despallières’s rich partners kept dying, and he kept spending the lavish bequests. Chris Hutchins’s book describes a sinister life
In Anita Desai’s entrancing novella, Rosarita, a student living in San Miguel uncovers her mother’s secret past life
Mayowa and the Sea of Words, Chibundu Onuzo’s debut novel, about a girl who takes on a Right-wing MP, sacrifices plot to preaching
Phil Harrison’s tantalising second novel, Silverback, teems with violence and justice, set in a city still recovering from the Troubles