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FT critics and experts select their must-read titles
Rebecca Rose picks her books of the year so far
The author’s mesmerising first short-story collection sheds light on the darkest corners of English life
A once-affluent family finds itself broke after the economy collapses in a dystopian take on the American future
A spiky mother-daughter relationship is put to the test in this darkly droll novel set amid the uncertainties of post-financial crisis Spain
A prison-cum-timeshare scheme is the subject of the author’s tale of a near-future US — but do the economics add up?
Nell Zink displays a gift for zingy one-liners and offbeat plots — but it’s a pity she doesn’t engage more with her characters
Motherhood and ‘rewilding’ jostle for attention in the author’s latest novel
A glimpse of escape from the confines of married life unsettles the female protagonists in this fine set of short stories
The erstwhile Mick Jagger of British letters talks longevity, literary lechery, America’s ‘veins of madness’ and his new book – a love story set in Auschwitz
The dilemmas we face when a loved one self-destructs
Lionel Shriver’s brother Greg was ‘5ft 7in and pushing 400lb’ when he died. She recalls the real-life events behind her new novel – and the literary challenges of focusing on fat
Rooted in reality, stories by the Irish-Canadian novelist span centuries and continents
A new novel of isolated, hard lives shows a ‘mesmerising storyteller’ at his best
Violent separatists feed off the media in this serious-comic novel that also explores the nature of charisma
In a Rapture-like occurrence a segment of humanity has vanished, although there is no pattern to the missing
Miranda July’s ‘It Chooses You’ interweaves memoir with cameos of strangers she sought out while struggling to finish the script for her second film
Sarah Hall’s short stories show how fragile moments of happiness can be
Complex but compelling, maddening but memorable, many great literary characters are unattractive. As the film of Lionel Shriver’s ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ is released, the author explores the appeal of the unappealing
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