Delirious concerns an aguing couple, Mary and Pete, a former cop and librarian respectively, who, in their late 70s, are selling their suburban house and intending to move to a retirement village. Their son was killed as a child in an accident 40 years before, and new information comes to light about his death. This triggers memories of other family grief, and as this well told and emotionally astute story unfolds, we learn a lot about the challenges of ageing, dealing with loss and grief, and how we deal with each other in relationships.

The prolific and always worth reading Benjamin Myers has produced a warm-hearted and moving novel about new beginnings and kindness, and also about loneliness, grief and addiction. An obscure American soul singer, who had a couple of minor hit records in the 1970s, and whose life was then overcome with tragedy and loss, doesn't realise that his songs have taken on a new life in the UK's north-east soul nostalgia scene, and that he's a cult favourite.

The Horse tells the story of an ageing former musician and song-writer living a miserable solitary life in an isolated abandoned mining site in Nevada. One day a horse turns up at his cabin, needing help, but Al is living a 30 mile walk from the nearest town, it's snowing and cold, and he's depressed and a drunk. As this dilemma unfolds, we learn of his past life as a jobbing musician, and this concisely written and moving novel becomes redemptive in it exploration of loneliness, addiction and human resilience.

Set over 5 days in an imaginary American city in 1922, this extraordinary noir-esque crime novel is dense, thick with character and plot twists, and is extremely satisfying and memorable. Francis Spufford must be one of the world's most inventive and versatile writers, and also one of our more eccentric. Channeling Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett, but in an America where the variety of smallpox that the Europeans bought was a less fatal strain than our history describes, so that the Native Americans dominate some states, is a convincing and plausible alternative history.

In this powerful, short memoir, Junger describes his experience in 2020, when he suffered a ruptured pancreatic aneurism, which he shouldn't have survived. As he slipped away, he was visited by his dead father, who invited Junger to join him. He then returned to life, but was then spurred to explore scientifically, philosophically and personally the meaning and events around mortality and death, and how we might understand an afterlife from a physicists perspective.

This is a difficult novel to describe, other than to say that it's set during the COVID pandemic, in Manhattan, and describes the experiences of a solitary writer, the narrator, who unexpectedly finds herself sharing a friend's apartment with a Gen Z dropout, and a spirited parrot. It seems like an unlikely set up for a novel, but it's compelling, compassionate, wry and moving. Nunez uses storytelling to advocate for community and connection, despite the difficulties in the modern world. She's a lovely and important writer.