J. Robert Lennon was seen as a rising star of American writing in the late 1990s with his debut novel The Light of Falling Stars in 1997, and On The Night Plain in 2001, but he seemed to disappear after that, at least from my view, and this new novel looked really intriguing. It's a strange, almost science fiction scenario - a woman is driving home from visiting her deceased son's grave when something changes, and she finds herself the same person but different.

Maddaddam is the third of Margaret Atwood's trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake in 2003, and continued with The Year of the Flood in 2009. The first two books ran in parallel time streams, and ended at the same place and time, Maddaddam begins at that point, and takes the story forward, but also fills in detail about much more that went on in the past.

I hadn't come across Norman Rush before, but he's written 3 previous novels, one of which, Mating, won the National Book Award in 1992. He was born in 1933, but has published only 3 novels and a short story collection since he started writing in the 1970s.

Lovely little book! A kind of a love story, but an oblique one. Lonely Tsukiko drinks alone in a local sake bar, where, by chance, she meets one of her old high school teachers. They talk, and meet regularly over a period of time, eating, drinking and talking. Their friendship deepens, and gradually begins to allow the possibility of something more. This is a beautifully delicate, short novel; the descriptions of the passing seasons, the food and sake they drink, and the minutiae of Japanese life are are evoked quietly and directly.

Tim Parks is an Englishman who has lived in Italy since 1981, and has written more than a dozen novels, and a further 8 or 9 books of non-fiction, mostly about Italy. Italian Ways is a kind of travel memoir, and is also a very funny meditation on the Italian character, as experienced through train travel. This may seem a strange approach at first, but trains did help build and rebuild Italy, and they do reflect Italians sense of themselves.

The Slap (2008) was a hugely successful novel, winning numerous literary awards, and selling well over a million copies worldwide. What would he write next? Could he do it again? I must admit to being a little nervous about this - I thought The Slap was a work of genius, highly compelling, exciting, profound, and with a brilliantly pulled-off, highly technical structure. Well, Barracuda is as brilliant, as compelling, more moving, more exciting; another work of genius. He's done it again.