Irvine Welsh, author
The user-friendly short chapter format of Nicci Cloke’s Her Many Faces, designed for our internet-lowered attention spans, obscures the fact that this page-turning, multiple viewpoint thriller is actually a densely plotted novel full of amazing twists. This is the book you want to take on a long, boring journey you’re dreading. You’ll pray you finish it before you arrive at your destination.
A Family Matter by Claire Lynch is a moving tale of a family fractured by love and kept apart by a reactionary state, partly set in the UK in the 80s. Beautifully observed. I sense a big movie in this.
Rapture’s Road by Seán Hewitt is amazing writing of breathtaking power. One of those poetry collections where, in the internet/AI era, you feel the bone-crunching, heart-scorching humanity in almost every sentence.
Partly a poem, partly an extended narrative through our desperate times, Corpse Flower by Johny Brown goes with incredible boldness and clarity to where few others venture. An instant urban classic.
Men in Love by Irvine Welsh is published by Jonathan Cape (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
***
Gerald, Guardian reader
I thought The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong was quite wonderful – a celebration of ordinary lives in an ordinary place. It has been described as “tender” which it profoundly is. It is both sad and very funny. A poet, Vuong has an unerring ability to choose the right word. Although the book is 400 pages long I found myself reading it slowly to keep enjoying it.
***
Barbara Kingsolver, author
One of my favourite recent reads is Heartwood by Amity Gaige, a fictional account of an urgent search for a lost hiker in the Maine woods. Through its unique structure and beautiful writing, it pulls off the impossible trick of being both meditative and suspenseful.
The Great Believers, a novel by Rebecca Makkai, is an exquisitely sad and beautiful reckoning for a generation of men we lost in the 1980s – not to war, but to a deadly epidemic the world tried to ignore: Aids.
Soldier Sailor, by Claire Kilroy, is a novel I read entirely in one sitting, holding my breath. It’s essential reading for anyone who has ever felt swallowed alive by caring for a child. And, also, for anyone who hasn’t.
The Farmer’s Wife, by Helen Rebanks, is a quietly transcendent account of everyday farm life that helps you remember your place in the world. Anything you accomplish today will only happen because someone first worked hard to grow your food.
Faber has reissued Barbara Kingsolver’s titles The Lacuna, Flight Behaviour and The Poisonwood Bible.
***
Laura, Guardian reader
I listened to Hunted by Abir Mukherjee on Audible. It’s an absolutely brilliant book exploring radicalisation, manipulation and belonging, involving a Muslim woman from London and a disillusioned US veteran – a very topical story that gets underneath the headlines, breathtakingly paced with twists and turns all the way. Mukherjee is a skilled author who can get into the minds of very different characters. It’s frighteningly realistic as to how people can find themselves in situations they would never have believed possible and how life can turn on a sixpence.
The characters and the plot are totally believable and offered an opportunity to see many sides to one story. I hope there will be a sequel as I found myself thinking of each character long after I finished the book.
