From pageturning thrillers and comic novels to an antidote to doomscrolling
Fiction:
The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson
Longlisted for the Women’s prize, this is a darkly funny portrait of a dysfunctional family
Bad Actors by Mick Herron:
Herron is on playful form in the eighth outing for his ragtag gang of demoted MI5 operatives
Companion Piece by Ali Smith:
Smith follows her seasonal quartet with a sideways look at the harm lockdown did to us all
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara:
The magisterial follow-up to A Little Life offers three books in one. A fragile, wealthy young man looks for love
The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett:
The Appeal, about murder in a gossipy amateur-dramatics community, was told through emails
Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo:
In this Zimbabwean successor to Animal Farm, inspired by the fall of Robert Mugabe
T
he Journey of Humanity by Oded Galor:
In an age of seemingly relentless bad news, economist Oded Galor provides an antidote to doomscrolling
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