Solace by Belinda McKeon is a novel about loss and the difficulty which so many people have communicating about important issues, particularly across generations. It is set against the background of Ireland in the early part of this century, at a time when rural areas continued to cling to traditional values and ways of life while brash modern Ireland epitomised by the Dublin property boom gradually began to encroach.

Mark Casey is a PhD student in Dublin, struggling with his thesis after losing enthusiasm for his work. He is writing about a Victorian novelist who lived near the small farming village where he was brought up – she once seemed important to him, but now seems irrelevant and lacking in interest.

Belinda McKeon

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If I am looking for a light and entertaining read then I am always happy to pick up any of Mike Gayle’s books. His novels are always amusing and provide a fabulous insight into a lad’s point of view. In his latest book, The Stag and Hen Weekend, the readers still gets this but they are also treated to the female perspective too. To be honest, this is really two books in one as the reader is invited along on both Helen’s hen weekend at a country spa and Phil’s stag weekend in Amsterdam. This couple have been together about ten years and finally after turning down Phil’s numerous proposals, Helen finally popped the question herself. Helen has quite a bit of emotional baggage though especially as she nearly made it to the altar once before until she discovered what a lying cheat her former fiancé really was. Not that that is likely to be the case with Phil though who she knows really loves her.

Mike Gayle

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Joanna Trollope is one of my favourite writers and her latest novel, The Soldier’s Wife, is just as good as, if not better than, as all of her other books. This story is a keen observation and fascinating insight into what it is like to be an army wife.

Dan Riley is a major in the British army and is returning home from a six month tour serving in Afghanistan. This should be an exciting time for his wife, Alexa, but she can’t help viewing his return with a certain amount of trepidation. She has been in this position before and knows that she will need to be patient while Dan readjusts to life back home but she also knows that it will be hard.

Joanna Trollope

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“When Hitler came to power, I was in the bath”.

In Sydney, Australia in the 1990s, Dora Becker receives a package, containing the writings of a long dead friend. Those writings and the memories of Dora, a German woman now in her nineties, form the narrative structure of this thought provoking novel. I have read a lot of novels and non fiction about this period recently, but All That I Am is more than just another tale about more victims and survivors of Nazism.

Anna Funder’s first book, Stasiland, was a non fiction work about the former DDR (East Germany), the secret police and their victims.

Anna Funder

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The exploration of the unknown has fascinated writers since time immemorial, wanderings, encounters with a new culture and the induction into it. This has been seen in popular fiction as well as literary – the latter starting perhaps with Marco Polo, who was accused of manufacturing much of his information. What is also curious is that people have been fascinated by encounters between the west and the orient – one could number books like Lord Jim, Shogun, River of Smoke and most recently The Yellow Emperor’s Cure, the last two written by Indian authors. Amitabh Ghosh and Kunal Basu. In fact, the last two have hit the public gaze within a year of each other. Ghosh’s is specifically about the opium trade with China during Britain’s reign while Basu’s pinpoints the encounter of a Portuguese doctor with Chinese medicine. Specifically a son’s quest to find a remedy for syphilis, the plague that was for 400 years or more the world’s forerunner to AIDs and that was similarly regarded by society and the Church, and save his father, ironically a respected physician who is helpless in the face of the scourge.

Kunal Basu

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In Helen Dunmore’s The Betrayal we catch up with doctor Andrei, his nursery school teacher wife Anna and Anna’s younger brother Kolya, now a teenager and the source of much anxiety for his sister. The family first appeared in Dunmore’s Whitbread and Orange short-listed The Siege set during the harsh Leningrad winter of 1941-42.

It’s now the 1950s and Andrei is working as a pediatrician. Like most Russians Anna and Andrei try to live as quietly as possible, avoiding anything that will get them noticed by the authorities. For Anna in particular this quiet existence means a great deal as her father was a writer who was not on the right side of the authorities and whose politics caused problems for the family.

Helen Dunmore

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Aravind Adiga’s latest book ‘Last Man in Tower’ explores what it takes to turn ordinary respectable middle-class people into evil, devious, greedy beasts prepared to contemplate murder. It looks at how neighbours so emotionally and physically close that they live like extended family can become enemies. I would also say it offers wholly believable insights into the psychology of bullying and persecution – tracking how the perpetrators of abuse can convince themselves that they are in fact the victims despite their abusive behaviour. It’s fascinating stuff; a sort of ‘Lord of the Flies’ for India in the 21st Century but with seemingly sensible, normal, respectable adults instead of schoolboys. It’s the sort of book that has you thinking “That could never happen to me” at the beginning and gradually realising that this type of salami-slicing of morality could probably happen to almost anyone.

Aravind Adiga

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Kathryn Stockett’s The Help is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights movement. Life in Jackson, however, does not really seem to be changing. The Help is a story of two black maids (the help), and one white woman who writes a book about the experiences of maids in Jackson.

The style of The Help throws you slightly at first, written as it is in a first-person Southern US twang – perhaps you could call it an accent or dialect, but neither seems quite right. This is particularly noticeable in the sections narrated by Aibileen and Minny, the maids.

Kathryn Stockett

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When Oskar asks an old university friend to look after his apartment while he goes to attend to his divorce in Los Angeles, he clearly has some inkling that the property may not be looked after exactly as he would wish. Why else would he leave notes hidden around the flat outlining the action to be taken should the worst occur? The worst, it seems, would be damage to the apartment’s pristine wooden floor and Oskar’s notes stress the importance of acting quickly should anything be spilled on the boards.

The apartment is on the first floor of an old building in the heart of some unnamed eastern European capital city where Oskar lives with his two cats Shossy and Stravvy.

Will Wiles

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Jodi Picoult is one of my favourite authors as her novels always challenge and provoke whilst tackling controversial topics. In her latest book, Lone Wolf, she prompts one to think about the sanctity of life as her main character is kept alive by machines in his hospital bed while his children argue about whether he should be allowed to die. The novel is made more interesting though as we learn about Luke Warren’s past and the somewhat unorthodox relationships he has had with his family.

The title – Lone Wolf is apt as we discover that Luke is a biologist who has spent his life studying and learning about the behaviour of wolves.

Jodi Picoult

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It was just another day on the 7.44 from Brighton to London, when suddenly a man is taken ill and dies. One Moment, One Morning by Sarah Rayner is a novel about how one moment is all it takes to change lives.

Karen loses her husband, Simon. Anna, her best friend, loses a valued friend and must support Karen. Lou was sitting near Simon and meets Anna when they share a taxi from the train, before Anna knows who has passed away. All three women’s lives are changed by this tragedy.

Sarah Rayner

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