Non-fiction
Hardbacks
The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness by Suzanne O’Sullivan (Picador, £14.99)
An excellent study of psychosomatic illnesses — such as resignation syndrome, a condition affecting the daughters of asylum-seekers who sleep for months on end — and how susceptible we supposedly rational humans are to these sicknesses of the mind.
The Madness of Grief: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Richard Coles (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £16.99)
“The Strictly Rev” Richard Coles writes movingly and honestly about the death of his partner in 2019 — and dealing with the grief afterwards. He leavens the sadness with his trademark wit.
Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell by John Preston (Viking, £18.99)
This is the fascinating story of the rise and fall of the bullying, crooked press baron Robert Maxwell, from poverty-stricken childhood in Eastern Europe to his time as a fighter against the Nazis to the top of society and eventually to his suspicious death. An utter monster.
Frostquake: The Frozen Winter of 1962 and How Britain Emerged a Different Country by Juliet Nicolson (Chatto & Windus, £18.99)
A lively social history of the great winter of 1962 (in which animals and even a milkman froze to death in the snow) argues that as the frost thawed a newer, more modern Britain — the world of the Beatles and sex scandals — emerged.
Empireland: How Imperialism Shaped Modern Britain by Sathnam Sanghera (Viking, £18.99)
The Times columnist Sathnam Sanghera goes on a personal journey in search of Britain’s imperial past and the way it still defines the country’s politics and people today. In the angry debate about the legacy of empire, the book finds a middle course between the ranting extremes.
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Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel (TLS, £9.99)
A short, sharp polemic from the comedian argues that the progressive left are concerned with every manifestation of racism, except when it comes to prejudice against Jews.
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates (Allen Lane, £20)
The billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates turns his big brain to the most pressing issue of the day: climate change. In this book he sets out how we can save the planet without destroying the economy. An antidote to hair-shirted greens and pessimists.
River Kings: A New History of Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman (William Collins, £25)
A beautifully readable and surprising history of the Vikings which uses archaeological evidence (from Buddhas to faked Arabic jewellery) to trace their culture all the way to Asia.
Albert and the Whale by Philip Hoare (Fourth Estate, £16.99)
A gorgeously written account of the great German artist Albrecht Dürer’s quest to see a whale washed up in Holland. A riffing, offbeat essay that takes in science, history, art, philosophy, nature and much, much more.
The Diaries of Chips Channon, Volume 1: 1918-1938, edited by Simon Heffer (Hutchinson, £35)
The fascinating, unexpurgated interwar diaries of the Tory MP and social alpinist Henry “Chips” Channon, who met everyone who was anyone from Hitler to kings, the Pope and the Mitfords. Bonking, snobbery and bitchy remarks abound in this big beast of a book.
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Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli (Allen Lane, £20)
If anyone can make sense of the topsy-turvy, counterintuitive world of quantum physics, it is Carlo Rovelli, the most poetically minded of today’s science communicators.
Churchill and Son by Josh Ireland (John Murray, £20)
Randolph Churchill started life as a golden boy, but his promising political career soon ended in failure and he died young, a victim of the demon drink. In this book we look at the fierce love that Winston had for his son, but was it a curse to be the son of such an extraordinary man?
The Sovereign Isle: Britain In and Out of Europe by Robert Tombs (Allen Lane, £16.99)
That rare thing, the Brexit-supporting Cambridge history don, shows how the history of Britain’s relationship with the EU explains the country’s decision to leave in 2016. A moderate, open-minded book rather than a tub-thumping polemic.
Irreversible Damage: Teenage Girls and the Transgender Craze by Abigail Shrier (Swift, £16.99)
Abigail Shrier warns against the dangers of the “craze” for gender realignment surgery. Young girls, she writes, are becoming collateral in adult culture wars. “Fearless” and “bleak”, wrote Janice Turner.
Non-fiction
Paperbacks
Becoming by Michelle Obama (Penguin, £12.99)
The super-bestselling memoir by the former first lady is finally out in paperback. Michelle Obama recounts her journey from humble Chicago beginnings to the White House (and has a few things to say about a certain Barack along the way).
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One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown (4th Estate, £9.99)
This deserving winner of the prestigious Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction tells the story of the Beatles as you’ve never heard it before. A lovely read full of jokes, digressions and surprises.
This Too Shall Pass: Stories of Change, Crisis and Hopeful Beginnings by Julia Samuel (Penguin, £9.99)
The psychotherapist Julia Samuel examines how to deal with change in life, whether it is divorce, redundancy, sexual confusion or disappointment. “When life sucks,” she writes, “we say, ‘this too shall pass’, and hopefully it does — but here’s the hitch: when life is good, it, too, inevitably, will pass.” The story is told through the stories of clients. Full of wisdom and compassion.
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson (William Collins, £9.99)
This account of the Blitz is like a kaleidoscope, told through dozens of vignettes and extracts from diaries. We meet Churchill in bed, dictating letters, with his cat Nelson at his feet; the diarist Joan Wyndham plots to lose her virginity . . . We see the high politics and the mundane everyday. Gripping and poignant.
House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-century Jewish Family by Hadley Freeman (4th Estate, £9.99)
Hadley Freeman tells the extraordinary life stories of her grandmother and her great-uncles. They were born into poverty in an obscure corner of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but war shattered their world and each took a very different path in life. In his review James Marriott wrote that the book “provides a moving and frightening picture of the ways ordinary fates are mangled by the machinery of politics, war and hate”.
The World I Fell Out Of by Melanie Reid (4th Estate, £9.99)
The Times columnist and “all-round alpha female” Melanie Reid suffered a riding accident that left her tetraplegic. This memoir tells the story of the accident, recovery and her life after. It is a beautifully written and unpitying look at the horrible reality of disability, undercut with some pitch-black humour.
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Uncanny Valley: Seduction and Disillusionment in San Francisco’s Startup Scene by Anna Wiener (4th Estate, £9.99)
Anna Wiener quit her low-paying job in publishing and moved to Silicon Valley to make pots of money. This is her entertaining memoir about the absurdities of life in the nerdy San Francisco tech world.
Fiction
Hardbacks
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber, £20)
Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel since winning the Nobel prize for literature has been acclaimed by critics (it’s nearly flawless in the opinion of John Self, The Times’s reviewer). It follows Klara, a robotic artificial friend in a near future, and her relationship with the girl who owns her. This touching story asks what it means to be human.
Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan (Jonathan Cape, £14.99)
Looking for the next Sally Rooney? This young Irish writer’s gripping debut novel follows its self-destructive female narrator’s toxic relationship with the controlling but devilishly handsome Ciaran. Sex, booze and millennial angst.
Hurdy Gurdy by Christopher Wilson (Faber, £14.99)
This is a short comic novel about the Black Death, following an unworldly 16-year-old monk, Brother Diggory, out into a bawdy, dangerous medieval world of “unbelievers, hypocrites, liars, blasphemers, drunks, cheats, thieves and fornicators” as he tries to avoid the pandemic.
Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford (Faber, £16.99)
Francis Spufford (the author of the picaresque romp Golden Hill set in 18th-century New York) turns his attention to the Second World War, asking what if the lives of five children killed by a V2 hadn’t ended and they had instead lived on into adulthood. Spufford is “the finest prose stylist of his generation”, The Times’s critic said.
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Slough House by Mick Herron (John Murray, £14.99)
The latest instalment of Mick Herron’s popular and witty series about the incompetent spies in the slovenly care of the Rabelaisian Jackson Lamb. This time former members of Slough House keep getting bumped off; could it be something to do with Russia?
Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Mantle, £14.99)
The Times’s historical fiction reviewer Antonia Senior wrote that she was willing to bet Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s new book about vice and the mysterious murder of a courtesan in high-society Georgian London would be the best historical crime novel she’ll read this year.
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (Viper, £12.99)
Ted Bannerman is the local weirdo. It’s him the police interviewed when a young girl disappeared 11 years ago. Dee, the sister of the girl who vanished, moves in next to Ted to spy on him . . . An upmarket horror thriller with shades of Stephen King and William Faulkner.
The Last Snow by Stina Jackson (Corvus, £16.99)
Vidar Bjornlund, one of the richest men in Sweden, is found murdered. The chief suspects are a pair of drug-dealing brothers, but Vidar made an enemy of virtually everyone in the village of Odesmark. Crime reviewer Mark Sanderson called it “a gripping novel, full of love and dread, that leaves you reeling when the identity of the culprit is revealed”.
Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander (Picador, £16.99)
This funny satire of identity politics is set among the Cannibal-American community. Seventh Seltzer’s mother has died and, as is traditional among Can-Ams, she demands that he eat her. The only problem is she weighs 450lb . . .
Luster by Raven Leilani (Picador, £14.99)
A bestseller in America and well received here, Raven Leilani’s debut follows a haphazard young black woman’s dysfunctional relationship with a middle-aged white man and his adopted black daughter.
Fiction
Paperbacks
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Picador, £8.99)
The paperback of this Booker-winning novel is published on Thursday. It is the story of the special relationship between young Shuggie and his alcoholic mother, Agnes, who so often fails in her battle against booze. The novel becomes even more powerful when you learn that the heart-rending tale is semi-autobiographical.
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan (Weidenfeld, £8.99)
Sally Rooney but with jokes. This gloriously witty novel follows a young Irish woman adrift in Hong Kong who ends up in a complicated ménage à trois with an Old Etonian banker and a female lawyer.
Broken by Don Winslow (HarperCollins, £8.99)
Stories from a modern master of crime fiction. Tales of revenge, moronic machismo and bumbling “ethical” dope dealers. And who could resist a story that begins with this sentence: “No one knows how the chimp got the revolver.”
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (Headline, £8.99)
Maggie O’Farrell’s latest, which won last year’s women’s prize for fiction, follows the tragic story of the death of Shakespeare’s 11 year-old son Hamnet from the plague.
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (Bloomsbury, £8.99)
A superbly readable social satire on race in modern America kicks off when a young black babysitter is arrested in a supermarket. She is mistakenly accused of having kidnapped her charge. The child’s mother, an anxious liberal, becomes obsessed with showing that she’s no racist.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Corsair, £8.99)
It came out in 2018 but this book — a mix of murder-mystery and coming-of-age story set in the swamplands of North Carolina — has been in the bestseller charts for months. It is the gripping and moving tale of nature-loving Kya, abandoned by her dirt-poor, white trash parents in the 1950s, who has to make her way alone in an unforgiving world.
Writers and Lovers by Lily King (Picador, £8.99)
Casey is trying to finish a novel. But a dead-end job, debt and grief for her mother who unexpectedly died are holding her back. That, and the men in her life. Who should she choose? The mature, stable older writer? Or the sexy poet? A witty and well-observed look at a modern woman, not coping.
Agency by William Gibson (Penguin, £8.99)
This was selected by The Times as its sci-fi novel of the year. Agency is a typically trippy William Gibson story that starts in 22nd-century London, which is ruled by Russian oligarchs, and soon zips back in time to a parallel 2017 in which Brexit and President Trump never happened. But will this parallel world go thermonuclear?
Bookshops reopen in England and Wales on Monday, April 12. In Scotland they reopen on Monday, April 26. No date has yet been set for Northern Ireland
