Vertigo by Boileau-Narcejac (Pushkin Press, £7.99)

Hitchcock’s famous film was based on this 1954 novel by French writing duo Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, a post-war nightmare of a man searching for a psychologically disturbed woman. Hitchcock eschewed the war references but kept the stylised aspect and the urgent, existential crisis that gives rise to a crime. Great reading.

Talking Dead by Neil Rollinson (Cape Poetry, £10)

The textured phallus on the cover of Rollinson’s latest collection and the quote from D H Lawrence at the beginning should be enough to alert us to the link between sex and nature that is explored throughout with refreshing honesty. The Lawrentian element points to a more welcome celebration of sex, too.

Life Below Stairs: True Lives Of Edwardian Servants by Alison Maloney (Michael O’Mara Books, £7.99)

As another series of Downton Abbey approaches, so the directly and indirectly related books fly off the shelves. First published four years ago, Maloney’s history appears at first rather prosaic and a little skimpy, but delving deeper yields some useful facts about the minutiae of the final years of servant life before the Great War.

Mosquitoland by David Arnold (Headline, £7.99)

Arnold’s debut follows teenager Mim who overhears her father and stepmother talking about Mim’s mother’s illness, hitherto kept from her. She promptly gets on a greyhound bus and travels cross-country to find her. The ‘road’ novel tends to be dominated by male voices so this is a fresh and often very endearing change.