I've really enjoyed all of the Andrew O'Hagan books that I've read, but this is quite a departure from the others. It's more ambitious in structure, and more powerful emotionally, which is not to say the others haven't been powerful, just that this novel carries quite a punch. There are two overlapping stories here. Anna Quirk, elderly and in the early stages of dementia, was once a pioneer of British documentary photography. Her grandson Luke is serving in Afghanistan where something terrible happens, which causes him to return to Scotland.

A graphic novel, in colour, about a graphic novelist with creative block and suffering from depression, who stumbles upon a comic which turns his world upside down. It's thoughtful in its exploration of the anxieties of modern mid-life, plays with various comic book genres, and is surprisingly moving. Horrocks is a master cartoonist and illustrator; he can say a lot through a character's expression. There's as much in this graphic novel as in a conventional novel of twice its length, it has a charm and playfulness all its own, it's also pretty erotic!

I've become a big fan of William Gibson in recent years, although I've not read his early work. There's no one quite like him in contemporary fiction, as he transcends genre; he's a combination of literary science fiction, crime thriller, social commentary, and a few other things..this is a novel set in two near futures, one in which the world seems similar to ours, and then another which seems utterly different.

I don't quite know what to make of this book, and while I liked one half - the contemporary half - I didn't get a whole lot out of the historical part. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize this year, and it does come highly regarded by some, although it does polarize..it also comes in two versions; the only difference between the two versions, I believe, is that the two parts of the book come in a different order - in one version the contemporary story comes first, in the other the historical part comes first.

Helena's father Stefan was one of the 732 Polish children offered unlikely refuge in New Zealand, following Soviet deportation during the second world war. This memoir explores his experiences, the burden he carried and recreates part of his long journey from Poland, across Siberia, through Iran and ultimately to New Zealand. It's a very moving book, very well written; the revelations unfold at just the right times in the text.

This is a socio-cultural look at the world of contemporary art, which seeks to explain how it works at as a market, through the eyes of the artist, collector, critic and art student. It succeeds with a great deal of wry humour, shrewdness and respect. As the title implies, there are seven chapters, each exploring a different element of the art world.