We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)
This is a visceral, lyrically told story of displacement that moves from a Zimbabwean ghetto – grimly named Paradise – to the US. In her narrator, Darling, Bulawayo has captured a fresh, authentic young voice
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The Hive by Gill Hornby (Little, Brown)
Which mum will be queen bee? A comedy with sting about playground politics that also offers witty insights into class, child-rearing and female friendship
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Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (Picador)
Dripping with atmosphere and bad weather, this historical novel about the last woman to be executed in Iceland is based on a true story that haunted its Australian author for years
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Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach (Picador)
An exploration of identity and the risks of social media via the story of Leila, a computer games addict who agrees to pose as vivacious, bipolar Tess. An unnerving thriller for the Facebook generation
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The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (Doubleday Ireland)
Twenty-one different narrators build up a portrait of a contemporary Irish village struggling in the aftermath of the financial crash in this slim but devastating novel
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10 Billion by Stephen Emmott (Penguin)
What will be the consequences of unchecked human expansion? A scientist’s brief, brutal and unignorable manifesto against complacency in the face of inexorable population growth and climate change
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Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki (Chatto & Windus)
The hidden sexual politics of the Arab world via interviews, statistics, opinion polls and personal reminiscences. A personal and humorous account by an award-winning Cairo-based journalist
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The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves by Stephen Grosz (Chatto & Windus)
The drama of ordinary lives told through 31 remarkable psychoanalytic case studies. A moving and mesmerising insight into the therapeutic process
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Money: The Unauthorised Biography by Felix Martin (Bodley Head)
From the huge stones used as currency on the Pacific island of Yap to the banking crisis of today – a fresh, lively study into what money actually is
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The Society of Timid Souls by Polly Morland (Profile Books)
A study of bravery in the face of stage fright, the bullring and the battlefield. A spirit-boosting companion in our age of anxiety
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Poetry
The Shipwrecked House by Claire Trévien (Penned in the Margins)
This 'playful and surreal' small-press poetry collection, influenced by the sea and the poet’s Breton childhood, was the readers’ nomination for this year
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