When I found myself counting the words in sentences rather than actually absorbing them, I realised it was time to give up on the book.

Zhang's bleakly lyrical first YA novel brought a cascade of admirers and superlatives; now comes this intricate narrative of adolescents in all their vulnerability, idealism and savagery.

From the sure hand of historian Joan Norlev Taylor comes the tricky manoeuvre of binding fact and fiction into a convincing historical novel.

"Plots set in the future are about what people fear in the present," says one of Lionel Shriver's characters in her latest novel set in a dystopian America of the near future.

Greg Fleming reviews the latest crop of crime fiction

Graham Swift's consummate novella fills a day, 90-plus years ago post-World War I, when the servant class are free to visit their families.

Strangely, here we have one autobiography of two people.

Ian McGuire's story of brutality, greed and whaling - set aboard a boat off the coast of Greenland - is worth seeking out, especially for those of you who are not squeamish.

Greg Fleming reviews the latest batch of crime fiction

Greg Fleming reviews the latest batch of crime fiction

Please add the name of Elizabeth Harrower to the embarrassingly long list of authors I should have read years ago.

"Tell me what you eat," said the French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825, "and I'll tell you what you are."

Sinclair McKay is enthralled by superb histories that chart mankind's flirtation with global disaster.

Terry Gilliam is the odd man out of the Python squad, the warm and loose American among uptight Englishmen. Yet he may be the team's secret weapon.