John Darnielle is the singer and songwriter of The Mountain Goats, one of my favourite bands. When I heard that he'd written a novel, and that it was good, and to be published in the UK by Granta (rights in Australasia have gone to Scribe) it's fair to say I was excited! It really is a pretty extraordinary, inventive and powerful novel, and for a first novel it's amazing. It's told backwards.

This novel follows the lives of a family living on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland, from 1980 when the family's 3rd child is born, through to 2002. The island is gradually losing people, and the family are becoming estranged as the children leave for schooling on the mainland and then have to decide whether to return. The book is not arranged chronologically, and it's rather episodic as it follows each member of the family separately, but it does work, and by the end, is very moving. It's a sad, downbeat book about a way of life which is disappearing,

I've been meaning to read this trilogy of classic travel memoirs for many years, but, as is the way of things, I just haven't got to them, until some time being laid up, I jumped at the chance. The trip was originally made in the 1930s, when Fermor was 18, but not published until many years later, and over a long period of time - Gifts was published in 1977, Woods and Water in 1986, and Broken Road after his death, in 2013, completed by Colin Thubron and Artemis Cooper.

A classic memoir, this is deservedly back in print, in a very handsome new edition to celebrate its 75th Anniversary. Despite Wray's protestations that he's not a writer, he has a very easy style, the book is chatty, honest, and authentic, and it's a great adventure, a ripping yarn. Wray was fired from his dull job during the Depression, and, being a restless young man, went on the search for adventure, and decided to build his own yacht, and sail it around Auckland and ultimately to the Pacific Islands. This despite the fact that he had no experience at boatbuilding, and no money.

This is a very confronting short story collection from the author of The Slap, Dead Europe and, most recently, Barracuda. Readers of the earlier novels will know what to expect from Tsiolkas's writing, but if you're new to him, this is probably not the best place to start, especially if you are easily shocked. The portrayal of sex in this collection is especially explicit, but at all times there is a moral dimension to the story; some of them are tragic and moving, some very funny, some just sad, but they are all very, very real and believable.

David Leser, the Australian journalist, started writing this book as a biography of his father, the legendary magazine publisher who rose from a difficult childhood as a German Jewish refugee in New Zealand, to run the Conde Nast empire with S I Newhouse. Over time, he changed his mind about the project, and set it aside, but felt there was a book in exploring his own relationship with his father's legacy.