Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan review – a fresh take on modern love
The author of Bellies explores contemporary questions of sex, love, relationship etiquette and gender identity
Memories of Distant Mountains by Orhan Pamuk review – journal of a private dreamworld
The Turkish Nobel laureate’s illustrated notebooks offer a vivid insight into his creative process
Lazarus Man by Richard Price review – hard times in Harlem
The collapse of a brownstone building sparks this panoramic view of life in a New York neighbourhood, from a writer on The Wire
Playing Possum by Susana Monsó review – do animals understand death?
From orcas to elephants, the ‘mourning rituals’ that suggest a sophisticated grasp of mortality
Nonfiction to look out for in 2025
From a river voyage with Robert Macfarlane to Helen Garner’s candid tale of a broken marriage, via Ian Leslie’s analysis of Lennon and McCartney’s complicated kinship, here are the titles you can’t afford to miss
That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack review – the joys of country music
A shy man leads a solitary existence until a young girl – and a cat – inveigle their way into his apparently contented life in this big-hearted tale
Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels
Sibling rivalry, a massive shark, anti-Nazi resistance in Norway, a brilliant romcom, and a tale of power and betrayal
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie audiobook review – a starry whodunnit
Peter Dinklage’s resonant turn as Hercule Poirot gives the beloved writer’s debut a charismatic reboot
Hubris by Johannes Krause and Thomas Trappe review – learning from the Neanderthals
Why did we succeed when other hominins didn’t, and can lessons from our evolutionary past help rein in our destructive impulses?
Darkenbloom by Eva Menasse review – Holocaust secrets unearthed
Based on a massacre in an Austrian town at the end of the second world war, this thoughtful novel confronts the long shadow of Nazism
And the Walls Became the World All Around by Johanna Ekström and Sigrid Rausing review – a dying writer’s journal
There is exquisite detail and piercing clarity in these observations from a writer’s notebooks as she faces terminal cancer
Alive in the Merciful Country by AL Kennedy – activism and betrayal
A primary school teacher navigates lockdown in an ambitious novel that asks potent questions about abuses of state and personal power
The Place of Tides by James Rebanks review – duck tales
The Lakeland shepherd heads to a Norwegian island where eiderdown is harvested to learn lessons about nature and humanity
And He Shall Appear by Kate van der Borgh review – enjoyable dark academia
Whispers of the the occult, class rivalry and Elizabethan alchemy fuel a glamorous debut set in a Cambridge college
What in Me Is Dark by Orlando Reade review – the afterlife of Paradise Lost
The writers, philosophers and politicians who have raided Milton’s epic poem for inspiration