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First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami (Harvill Secker)

Eight short stories (translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel), all narrated in the first person, dance with the big and not so big issues of life, from college love to the importance of jazz and the joy of basketball. Murakami plays with the music of memory and the rigor of reality (jazz albums are invented, scenarios are magicked up) in an anthology where the narrator, who may or may not be Murakami himself (biographical details trick and tease) ponders both the mysteries and limits of life.

The Hard Crowd by Rachel Kushner (Jonathan Cape)

A few pages into this collection of essays and you know you’re in with the hard crowd. It’s 1993 and 24-year-old Kushner (Flamethrowers, The Mars Room) is revving up for a motorcycle road race called the Cabo 1000 that runs from San Ysidro, California to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. In ‘Girl on a Motorcyle, the author pegs it up to 142mph before things happen. It’s a blistering start to an anthology that takes us to a Palestinian refugee camp, sounds out the San Francisco music scene and goes inside America’s prison system.

Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka (Harvill Secker)

Kimura boards a bullet train leaving Tokyo for Morioka. On board is Satoshi, the baby-faced psychopath who threw Kimura’s sixyear-old boy from a building. Kimura is seeking vengeance. But there are other professional assassins on the train, as well as a suitcase of ransom money. Who will make it to the end of the line alive? This Japanese bestseller (and Brad Pitt’s next Hollywood blockbuster), might not be the most literary of thrillers but you’ll hardly notice as the narrative, like the Shinkansen, moves at a cracking pace.