The Book of Salt Monique Truong (Chatto)

The story of Binh, the Vietnamese cook to Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas in 1930s Paris. It is inspired by two lines written by Toklas, the experimental US writer who was Stein's lover: "[He] came to us through an advertisement that I had in desperation put in the newspaper. It began: 'Two American ladies wish...'." Truong is Vietnamese-American

Brick Lane Monica Ali (Doubleday)

The heavily marketed and well-reviewed east London saga, exploring the lives and fates of two Muslim sisters, one living in London's East End and one in Bangladesh

Vernon God Little DBC Pierre (Faber)

Teenager Vernon Little is already a social outcast in his home town before earning full pariah status when blamed for a Columbine-style school shooting. A manic, motormouthed satire on America, consumerism and conformism written, remarkably, in south London

A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies John Murray (Viking)

Short stories about people in extremity overseas. An African aid worker watches a crowded church burn down. A carpenter hears strange noises in the walls of his Antipodean beach house. The author is an Australian doctor

Q Luther Blissett (Heinemann)

Q is the working name of a papal spy trying to keep a lid on the the rise of Lutherism in the Reformation. His foe is an idealist sometimes called Gert. Amazon co.uk says the authors, an Italian anarchist collective, are "a little too in love with their own cleverness"

Non-fiction

Into the Silent Land Paul Broks (Atlantic)

Mixes real-life neurological tales, fictional stories and personal reflections about the relationship between brain and mind. Broks, who lectures in the subject, has been called "the new Oliver Sacks"

Duende Jason Webster (Doubleday)

His heart broken by a woman, Webster tells how he studied flamenco guitar, spent nights with a dancer and days on cocaine. Then, says his publisher, "tragedy struck"

Mountains of the Mind Robert Macfarlane (Granta)

A personal and cultural history of mountains, from 300 years ago when they were considered repellent as landscape, to the present-day cult. MacFarlane teaches at Cambridge University

Stasiland Anna Funder (Granta)

Anecdotal history of "the most perfected surveillance state of all time, the former East Germany", a country where people were irradiated to enable Geiger counter tracking or had their underwear stolen for"smell samples"

The Last Party John Harris (Fourth Estate)

How Alastair Campbell helped market the phrase Cool Britannia. This aspires to be the definitive history of the Britpop era, when a new celebrity elite emerged and the Labour party returned to power

John Ezard