An ordinary life thrown into disarray

REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

Anne Tyler

Chatto & Windus, £14.99

Pulitzer prize winner Anne Tyler’s latest novel focuses on “what goes through the mind of a man like Micah Mortimer”. Micah, an unabashed lover of routine, runs his own one-man IT business helping mostly-elderly technophobes sort out their computer problems. But suddenly his usually ordered life is shaken up by two events. His girlfriend thinks she is going to be evicted from her sublet apartment, and a teenage boy who’s the son of his first real love appears on his doorstep in close succession. These two events send shock waves through his life. Tyler is expert at writing about the human heart and relationships. And while lovers of Anne Tyler will devour this, it is not her best, but on a bad day is better than most others on their best.

BRIDIE PRITCHARD

THE ADDRESS BOOK: WHAT STREET ADDRESSES REVEAL ABOUT IDENTITY, RACE, WEALTH AND POWER Deirdre Mask

Profile Books, £16.99

This book has everything you want in a discursive non-fiction: a fascinating topic, excellent breadth and depth of research across multiple countries and communities, logical compilations of the facts into topic areas and an enthusiastic and chatty narrator.

Uncovering what the humble address reveals about us in a multitude of ways – from how we perceive and make sense of our world, through to what constitutes a social legacy, and on to the very timely usefulness of the address in helping us deal with epidemics – Mask has done an excellent job of collating an impressive array of fact, fable and experience. It’s unfortunate at times the delivery isn’t quite as tight or as nuanced, but there’s still much to appreciate in this book.

NICOLE WHITTON