MY FIVE FAVOURITES FROM TITLES PUBLISHED THIS YEAR

1. Normal People Sally Rooney Faber & Faber

Sally Rooney is only 27, but she has already written two extraordinary novels and is being hailed as the voice of her generation. Normal People seems like a straightforward love story between two young people. What elevates it, though, is Rooney’s crisp, unhurried prose and her astonishing eye for detail, as she explores class, social media and mental illness.

2. My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh Penguin

The narrator of this bleak, at times very funny, novel attempts to cure her (many) ills by going to sleep for a year. Moshfegh, who was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2016 for Eileen, digs out moments of profound tenderness from a cloud of darkness and despair in this strange, moving tale of a drug-induced hibernation.

3. Kudos Rachel Cusk Faber & Faber

The final part of Rachel Cusk’s trilogy features another series of strange encounters that seem to simultaneously illuminate and obscure the narrator, Faye. This is a novel only in the loosest sense – it’s more of a series of thoughts, really – but Cusk’s prose, as sparse as ever, brings an eventual, beautiful clarity.

4. Warlight Michael Ondaatje Vintage

Warlight is an odd, unsettling work of sparkling brilliance that follows Nathaniel from the age of 14 to adulthood, as he tries to solve the mystery of his mother’s disappearance. A slippery tale full of shadowy corners and shady characters, this is Ondaatje’s best novel since The English Patient.

5. Asymmetry Lisa Halliday Granta Books

A thrilling debut novel about a young editor called Alice and her affair with a much older writer, Ezra, who bears more than a passing resemblance to American novelist Philip Roth. All of modern life is here, as Halliday prods us into thinking about immigration, art, literature and, most fundamentally of all, human relationships.