Raynor Winn: The Salt Path

Heidi Sopinka : Utopia

Heidi Sopinka’s second novel is set in the LA art world of 1978. This is the time of Andy Warhol and Valerie Solanas (who tried to kill him). It begins at a party, with a young woman in a room breast feeding her seven-week-old baby. Not just any young woman, but Romy, performance artist and part of a glamourous power couple with Billy, some years older, and recipient of Guggenheim awards and shows in Europe. Romy is ripped apart by anger and jealousy. She feels that Billy will always be more famous and respected than she is because she is a female. And this is the theme of this story; the battle between the sexes.

Anthony McGowan: How To Teach Philosophy To Your Dog

We’re doing philosophy now, and that means following the argument wherever it leads, like that time you chased a rabbit and ended up with your head stuck in a hole.

Books you may have missed

Hands up who has read John Banville’s book The Infinities, in which, in an alternative universe, cars run on sea water, Sweden is a rapacious and war-like nation, and the Dutch have invaded the United States with New York once again becoming New Amsterdam? Not many? I thought so.

Bonnie Garmus: Lessons In Chemistry

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Sheila,” one of the women was saying, “but didn’t she say cast-iron requires zero-point-one-one calories of heat to raise the temperature of a single gram of atomic mass by one degree Celsius?”

“That’s right, Elaine,” the other said. “That’s why I’m buying a new skillet.”

sunbathing : Isobel Beech

Some days took longer to pass than others. Some felt like weeks, some I slept all the way through. Those were my favourite.

Isobel Beech’s first novel, sunbathing, is a story about grief; and of how some kind of healing can begin.

Mary Karr: The Liars’ Club

eden : Jim Crace

Even as a child I wasn’t taken by the idea of heaven; no Enid Blyton, no licorice allsorts, and didn’t it sound like one of those boring endless Sunday afternoons where we whined to our mother, ‘There’s nothing to do-oo.’

The endless war of light and dark