A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

George Saunders
Bloomsbury, £10.99, pp432 (paperback)

Booker-winning author Saunders has been teaching the 19th-century Russian short story at Syracuse University for more than 20 years now and this book makes the class sound incredible. Rather than academically deconstructing stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol, he wittily guides the reader through their craft and meaning. This is a book for readers as well as would-be writers, a wonderful treatise on the importance of fiction as a way to be more active, curious and alert in our own lives.

The Slow Road to Tehran

Rebecca Lowe
September Publishing, £18.99, pp416

Billed as a revelatory bike ride through Europe and the Middle East, Lowe’s adventure from London to Tehran is not a typical tale of endurance. Nor is Lowe an avid cyclist; instead, she is a perceptive writer who finds new ways to think about the complex peoples, histories and politics of the countries she journeys through. There are scrapes and difficulties, but these escapades are less about Lowe and more about the kindness of others, encouraged by the disarming quality of “the machine which makes us all brothers and sisters”.

Drift

Caryl Lewis
Doubleday, £14.99, pp240

Lewis is an award-winning Welsh novelist, playwright and screenwriter; her debut English-language novel confirms her talent. Nefyn finds the body of a Syrian, Hamza, washed up on the Welsh coast and as she nurses him back to life, her unique powers are gradually revealed. Contemporary concerns of war, displacement and identity are adroitly woven into a story with a magical quality, underpinned by some lovely yearning writing about the land and sea. In times of war, Lewis finds resilience, redemption and hope; right now, Drift feels perfectly judged.

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