42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams

Edited by Kevin Jon Davies
Unbound, £30, pp320

More than two decades after his death, the author Douglas Adams remains deeply missed by his many admirers. In lieu of a conventional autobiography, this collection of letters, jottings and ephemera – interspersed with heartfelt tributes from admirers including Stephen Fry and Neil Gaiman – will have to serve as the definitive insight into this brilliant man’s life and work. By its very nature the book can frustrate as much as it charms, flitting wildly from subject to subject, but it is an invaluable reminder of what an inimitable – and prophetic – talent Adams was.

Alchemy

SJ Parris
Harper Collins, £18.99, pp470

Parris’s seventh Giordano Bruno novel boasts all the ingredients that her legions of devoted fans have come to expect: ecclesiastical and political skulduggery. In this instalment, revolving around Bruno being dispatched to the court of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in an attempt to contact the alchemist John Dee, a breathless pace and acutely observed historical detail make for a story that confounds and surprises. Parris skilfully weaves her real-life characters into fictitious situations, and Bruno, especially, remains a charismatic protagonist. This excellent series only gets better.

Mercury Pictures Presents

Anthony Marra
John Murray, £9.99, pp416 (paperback)

Novels about the golden age of Hollywood are often buried in cliche – cigar-chomping moguls and ambitious starlets – so it is to Marra’s credit that his excellent novel subverts expectation. Its protagonist, Maria Lagana, works at the fictious Mercury Pictures, where her boss, Artie, is under investigation by the Senate for making apparently subversive films, but flashbacks to her life in fascist Italy complicate and deepen her situation. Marra elegantly captures the excitement and fear of a changing world.

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