THE BOOKCASE

Gail Honeyman

There are some books whose narrator is so well-written, so human and instantly engaging, that they have you right from the first line. Such is the case with Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant. It's unremarkable as first lines go ("When people ask me what I do – taxi drivers, hairdressers – I tell them I work in an office"), but it subtly poses questions and tees up the most refreshing and heart-warming debut I've read in some time. Eleanor has worked at the same boring job for eight years. She has the same routine: home to her council flat, the Archers and pasta with pesto and salad for tea. On a Friday evening, she buys a margarita pizza and two bottles of vodka to see her through the weekend: "Monday takes a long time to come round." Eleanor, who's 31, was in care through much of her childhood and has hazy flashbacks to a traumatic event. Her mum calls on Wednesday evening from prison, and there's no love between them. When scruffy new office IT guy Raymond and Eleanor see an elderly man take a tumble, it draws the two of them together into a tentative friendship that will eventually help Eleanor break free from her lonely existence and learn how to live. Not only is she a joy to read as a character, brave, smart and funny, Eleanor will give readers some well-needed perspective on their own lives.

The Ice

Laline Paull

This is the second novel from the author of the much-praised The Bees. Set in the near future, the action alternates between Britain and Arctic Norway as "very modern buccaneer" Sean Cawson pursues commercial success in Europe's far north, while haunted by the accidental (or was it?) death of his business partner, environmentally aware Tom Harding. Among the clues that this is set a few years from now are the introduction of a top barrister as a "KC", not "QC", and the fact that most ice at the North Pole has melted, opening a trade route across the top of the world and raising the prospect of both the exploitation of natural resources and great-power territorial disputes (Putin's Russia actually planted a flag on the Polar seabed in 2007). This could have been preachy in a green sort of way. It isn't. And much of the action takes place in that under-used source of drama, the British coroner's court.

These Dividing Walls

Fran Cooper

Cooper, who grew up in London but spent three years in Paris while writing her PhD, sets her first novel in an unfashionable quarter of the French capital during a hot summer when tensions are rising. The residents of an apartment complex barely know each other except to exchange a greeting when they pass in the courtyard, but their lives become intertwined as what goes on behind their closed front doors is slowly revealed. Edward, a young Brit looking to escape his past, arrives and meets a cast of characters including Cesar, who is hiding secrets from his wife; Anais, who is crumbling under the pressure of caring for her young children; and Madame Marin, whose husband turns a blind eye to her nocturnal outings. There are few real surprises but some drama as riots erupt on the streets and the complex's residents try to make sense of what is happening. Cooper avoids turning the less pleasant among them into lazy stereotypes and her three-dimensional characters are what make this novel so readable.

The Book Smugglers Of Timbuktu

Charlie English

A fabled Sin City near the desert, renowned for its opulence and a magnet for those gamblers ready to risk all to go there. But there the comparisons with Las Vegas end. Timbuktu, in modern-day Mali, long a place of learning and culture, was considered sinful by its detractors, in this case the al Qaida-inspired conquerors who took control in 2012, threatening the gentle and learned version of Islam for which it is renowned as they planned to dismantle a culture they considered heretical. Journalist English, from a long line of Britons fascinated by the stronghold on the edge of the Sahara, tells of the Monument Men-style efforts to preserve ancient manuscripts against invaders determined to erase history. The occupiers would later be ejected and while some Sufi shrines were damaged, the rescue operation saved many manuscripts.