The Only Story Julian Barnes Jonathan Cape €14.99

Barnes’s 13th novel is one to savour. From semiretirement, its narrator, Paul, looks back on his life’s defining drama: a scandalous affair with a woman named Susan that began when he was 19 and she 48, and endured for more than a decade. The workings of his very human heart – and mind – are compelling, and as he parses his memories, striving to separate love’s truths and illusions, the narrative flits intuitively between the first, second and third person. Emotionally acute, profoundly beautiful, as droll as it is deep – we may be just a fortnight in but this has to be one of the smartest novels that 2018 has to offer. Hephzibah Anderson