Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor, published in hardback by 4th Estate
A13-YEAR-OLD girl goes missing while staying in the Peak District with her family for New Year. This is the opening of Jon McGregor's fourth novel, Reservoir 13, but don't be fooled by the initial suggestion of crime drama – this unconventional narrative is not interested in pace, plot, or answering any of the questions it poses. With a chapter for each year following the disappearance, inhabitants of the rural village find their dreams and imagination haunted by 'Rebecca, or Becky, or Bex'. However, mostly, life carries on as before and McGregor's collage-style narration delves in and out of different experiences within the community. As the details cumulate over the years, poignant stories slowly emerge. In among all this, McGregor includes details of the surrounding natural world; the badger sett, fox family, bird movements, and seasonal changes. It all makes for a unique reader experience, which can be enjoyable if you have the patience to withstand the teasingly sparse plot.
Kate Wilkinson
Swimmer Among The Stars by Kanishk Tharoor, published in hardback by Picador
WHAT is more important to identity: how we see ourselves, or how others see us? Our abilities, or the role we play in society? Which is the stronger definition? Answers to these questions shift within this dazzling first book of short stories by New York City-based writer Kanishk Tharoor, who cherry-picks from Indian history and culture to imbue his prose with a quiet confidence that the reader will follow, even if they do not grasp the full significance. This is epitomised in the title tale, which explores the relationship between an old woman and her childhood language, of which she is the final speaker. She bamboozles academics by creating new words that they may never understand - questioning the beauty and purpose of verbal communication. Referring to protagonists by their job or function, rather than a name, both recalls the caste system and transforms them into fairytale characters - even if they are an elephant trainer sent to direct their steed from India to Morocco, or a UN ambassador orbiting the remains of a flooded Earth on a space hotel, or a coal miner whose portrait is taken for a Western magazine. Each story expertly explores a tantalisingly different worldview - resulting in a near-perfect collection.
Natalie Bowen
The Walworth Beauty by Michele Roberts, published in hardback by Bloomsbury
SPLIT narratives; female and male; then and now. In The Walworth Beauty, the latest novel from previously Booker-shortlisted Michele Roberts, two lives that are separated by more than a century begin to intersect across time. In 1851, family man Joseph is commissioned by Henry Mayhew to conduct research on the lives of prostitutes in south London. Meanwhile, in 2011, Madeleine – middle-aged, divorced and unemployed – has hopes of finding a new life in Apricot Place in Bermondsey. Roberts interrogates past and present through vivid detail, from the velvet-slippered rooms of the Victorian pleasure houses to the slick city bars in the modern metropolis. The Walworth Beauty is most successful in showing how time is woven into contemporary life and how the past informs the present.
Julie Vuong
NON-FICTION
The Reality Frame: Relativity And Our Place In The Universe by Brian Clegg, published in hardback by Icon Books
BRIAN Clegg, who studied physics at Cambridge, has made a specialism of writing about science for non-scientists. In this book he explores the big ideas of science by building the entire universe from scratch, from space, time, matter and gravitation through to life and the creative faculty which he sees as distinctively human. At last, thought hopelessly non-scientific old me, I shall master quantum physics. Some hope. Certainly, the language seems clear enough, and the author is a friendly and supportive guide. There are fascinating vignettes from the history of science and a huge field of knowledge is covered. But the concepts – however clearly explained – rest on other concepts, understanding of which is sometimes assumed, and the abstractions mount up. There is so much in this world of antiparticles and dark matter and quantum loops that is fascinating, but alien. And terrifyingly, despite Clegg's plea for school syllabuses to look beyond old-hat Newtonian science to focus more on relativity, there is apparently still so much about the fundamental nature of existence that remains guesswork.
Dan Brotzel
Hidden Nature by Alys Fowler, published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton
IN NOVEMBER 2016, gardening writer Alys Fowler wrote a piece for the Guardian and in it announced she had fallen in love with a woman. Hidden Nature narrates what led up to that life-changing tumble into a new relationship, and what impact discovering you are not quite who you thought you are can have on your marriage and your garden. But firstly, it starts with an inflatable boat and a map of Birmingham's rubbly canal network. Fowler throws herself into the water in an attempt to seek out wildness and adventure, roaming the waterways with friends, having impromptu picnics on the bank and braving seemingly endless tunnels. Between boating trips, her increasingly fractured relationship with her husband H – who suffers from cystic fibrosis – as they both try to start new lives, becomes apparent in snippets, as though through fogged glass. Thoughtful and heartbreakingly honest, the writing occasionally lacks sharpness and meanders breathlessly between listlessness and Fowler's wracking emotional rages. Beautiful at times, but at others, the threads holding it all together come loose.
Ella Walker
CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK
Good Dog McTavish by Meg Rosoff, published by Barrington Stoke
BARRINGTON Stoke was set up to publish 'super-readable' books, designed with linear narratives, a clear font and tinted pages to appeal to all young readers, but especially those with dyslexia or visual stress. They've attracted big-name authors such as Michael Morpurgo and Malorie Blackman and now Meg Rosoff is back with her second tale since 2013's Moose Baby. All is not peachy in the Peachey household. Ma Peachey is fed up with cooking for everyone and clearing up after them – and quits to eat brown rice and practise yoga, so nearly nine-year-old Betty decides they need a dog. Pa Peachey reluctantly takes them to a rescue centre, where Betty picks out McTavish – or does he choose them? No sooner than he's moved in, he sets to work to solve the family's problems, in cahoots with Betty, and gradually, under his guidance, they learn to tidy up and do laundry. It's a beautiful, simple story of pure puppy love, in short snappy chapters, written in Rosoff's refreshing, disarmingly honest style.
Kate Whiting
