BOOK OF THE WEEK
XX by Angela Chadwick Dialogue Books, paperback £13.99, ebook £7.99.
A NEW trial offers Rosie and Jules a chance to have a baby using DNA from both their eggs. However, the couple are not prepared for the furious backlash from critics or intense press interest which follows their every move. Former journalist Angela Chadwick’s thought-provoking first novel explores the ethics of creating babies with two mothers whose X
small American town originally built as a seemingly utopian place for intellectual enterprise and human improvement.
Two parallel stories run through the book: Willa Knox is trying to save the falling-down home that her recently tragedy-struck family have moved into thanks to her husband’s new job at the local university; and an earlier teacher chromosomes can only create daughters. Her measured writing means the reader can consider the arguments from both sides and there are plenty of twists to keep the plot moving. Told from the point of view of the realistically flawed Jules, the reader at first sees Rosie largely through her partner’s rose-coloured specs, but Chadwick makes her more rounded as the characters develop, shaped by the experiences they face on the path to motherhood.
there – Thatcher Greenwood – finds the town isn’t as freethinking as it appears and gets mired in problems when he tries to teach Darwin’s new ideas. Living next door to Thatcher is Mary Treat, a self-taught naturalist, who is determined to live her life how she chooses.
Kingsolver just steers clear of sermonising on the state of the planet, and shows how people who have worked hard and done things right can end up destitute because of cultural and financial shifts.
NON-FICTION
WE ARE THE NERDS by Christine Lagorio-Chafkin
Little, Brown, paperback £14.99, ebook £7.99.
REDDIT is the third most visited website in America, yet many people haven’t scarcely heard of it. For the uninitiated, Redditors earn ‘karma’ points by starting threads and contributing to discussions.
Some are innocuous such as life hacks and some trawl the vilest internet memes.
Lagorio-Chafkin’s first book is based on interviews and exhaustive research in the Reddit and other internet archives, and is more or less a biography of Reddit founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian.
At the same time it offers a subtle critique of the anarchistic, Wild West ideas that underpin the beliefs of many ‘Redditors’.
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Tombland, C. J. Sansom
The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Heather Morris In a House of Lies (rigth), Ian Rankin The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton The Sixteen Trees of the Somme, Lars Mytting
Milkman, Anna Burns
The Last Chance Hotel, Nicki Thornton Tom Gates 15: What Monster?, Liz Pichon Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
War of the Wolf, Bernard Cornwell Chart courtesy of Waterstones
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10. BEST-SELLING KINDLE TITLES 1. Milkman, Anna Burns (right) 2. One Day in December, Josie Silver This Could Change Everything, Jill Mansell
The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Heather Morris
The Girl in the Letter, Emily Gunnis The DI Gus McGuire Cases: books 1-3, Liz Mistry 7. Tombland, C. J. Sansom 8. The Birthday, Carol Wyer 9. Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan 10. This is Going to Hurt, Adam Kay Chart courtesy of Amazon.co.uk
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