This is the third of Patti Smith's memoir/jounals, following Just Kids and M Train. This is a little different to the earlier two, being briefer, meandering and dreamlike. It's no less powerful for its lack of formal structure. She writes beautifully, intelligently and movingly. It's a very timely book, as our time becomes less certain.

This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015, and has been a huge global bestseller. It's set in Paris and elsewhere in France during the Nazi occupation, and has two separate threads to the story. Marie-Laure, a young blind girl, who, with her father are trying to not be noticed by the Germans, and Werner, a reluctant teenaged German soldier. Over the 500-odd pages of this moving novel, the two are drawn ever closer to each other. The horrors of this terrible war are brilliantly evoked in this powerful novel, the effect of this great brutality on individuals has rarely been so well told.

Dance Prone is ostensibly about a punk band touring the US in 1985, in a haze of drugs, violence and sex; and a narrative present in 2019, as Conrad, the lead singer, attempts to piece together the traumatic events of the past. It's a hugely colourful, passionate, energetic novel, bristling with anger and intrigue, a full on experience like little I've read. It's an astounding achievement which many people will hate for its profanity and eccentricity. I loved the evocation of playing live music, the violence of the punk crowds, the road, and the confusion of memory and reality.

Sarah Moss, a novelist and creative writing teacher, spent 2009 teaching in Iceland, with her family. The book chronicles their struggle to adapt to a somewhat strange and closed society and their gradual adjustment and eventual affection for the country. During their time there they travel around the country, and Moss writes elegantly about the landscape and weather, as well as the character of the people she meets and works with. A fascinating book about a fascinating part of the world.

In this very slight book, essentially a conversation between two great travel writers, Theroux and Chatwin exchange knowledge about Patagonia, exploring the history and mythology of this most mysterious and remote of regions. A curious and lively read, only 60 pages, and delicately illustrate with woodcuts by Kyffian Williams.

Gavin Francis is a Scottish GP, traveller and writer. He has written on the human body, and Antarctica, and has always been obsessed with islands. Over thirty years or so he has visited many of the world's islands, and in this beautifully presented and illustrated book, he discusses their history, mythology, and literature alongside his own experiences. There are fascinating old maps reproduced in colour throughout. A book for island junkies, but it's not just for us!