New books to read this week

Fiction

Idle Grounds by Krystelle Bamford is published in hardback by Hutchinson Heinemann

This strangely beautiful but dread-laden story is an incredibly vivid and fascinating debut. At a family gathering, a gaggle of cousins lose Abi, the youngest of their cohort, on a summer’s day where they’re stalked by strange goings-on. With their parents caught up in long-running arguments about the family’s late matriarch, Beezy, and utterly nonplussed by Abi’s disappearance, the cousins set out to find her themselves. Krystelle Bamford so precisely captures the weird bonds between cousins, the enforced camaraderie, the not-quite-sibling love and the bored but all-in-it-together feeling that descends on children when their parents check out and leave them to their own devices. The realness of their dynamic anchors the surrealness of their day, which includes a forest pulsing menacingly and a shady creature zipping across the landscape. Particularly interesting is how Idle Grounds is narrated retrospectively by an unnamed cousin who chats directly to the reader, makes natty asides and goes on random pop culture tangents that don’t much propel the novel, but are thoughtful and amusing. Bamford has written something really quite original and special.

Table For One by Emma Gannon is published in hardback by HarperCollins

Table for One is The Hyphen author Emma Gannon’s second novel. A multi-faceted love story for the modern age, it follows Willow, a talented copywriter and co-founder of tech company Scatterbox with her significant other of 10 years, Dom. Always hiding her light under a bushel and staying small to make everyone happy, Willow is approached to write a story about a trending single life influencer. As she learns more about the single world, Willow starts doing more things for herself and her worth grows. Gannon has written a glimpse into what it’s like being in a coercive and manipulative relationship, where someone doesn’t even realise that is what was happening until the rug is pulled from beneath their feet. It’s also a masterful look into the trap your Instagram feed can become. A satisfying story of personal growth.

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, is published in hardback by Granta Books

Japanese author Sayaka Murata has enjoyed cult success in recent years with novels such as Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman, which conjured convincingly eccentric individuals living in tension with society’s expectations of conformity. Vanishing World, newly translated from Murata’s 2015 original, slightly inverts the pattern, following the story of Amane, a relatively normal protagonist, in a near-future where artificial insemination has become standard and relationships increasingly sexless. This is an inviting premise and allows for interesting observations from Amane on different forms of love, but this society’s new norms are introduced somewhat perfunctorily and change over the course of the novel, making deeper engagement difficult. Perhaps it also matters that discussions of gender and desire have developed noticeably since the novel was originally published. Amane’s eventual acts of rebellion provide a dark twist and her personal reflections are often insightful, but her interactions with others feel somewhat flat.

Non-fiction

Moral Ambition: How to Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference by Rutger Bregman is published in hardback by Bloomsbury Publishing

A thought-provoking, transformative and bold book, Moral Ambition challenges you to ask yourself: can you change the course of history? While this might seem an overwhelming and impossible task upon first reflection, from reading Dutch historian Rutger Bregman’s book, you realise the answer is: yes, you absolutely can. Packed with powerful stories of figures past and present, Moral Ambition looks at the qualities and skills of great change-makers – and how we, too, can lend our own talents to the biggest challenges of our time. From discussing topics including climate change, inequality and health, this book shows you that, sometimes, it takes just one person to stand up and make a difference. Rutger shows us that it is possible to change the world, so the ultimate question is: how can you help?

Children’s book of the week

Oh, Carrots! by Mariajo Ilustrajo is published in hardback by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books

Oh, Carrots! is packed full of charm, largely thanks to author-illustrator Mariajo Ilustrajo’s jolly neon carrot, who leaps excitedly across the pages. Suitable for young children and early readers, it follows the quiet life of Rabbit, who feels rather lonely in winter, until one of his carrot seeds germinates, growing into a sentient carrot with excellent green fronds for hair and some serious personality and verve. Carrot forces a reluctant Rabbit out of his comfort zone and together they embark on a grand friendship. The dialogue, written cartoon style, is a little stop-start and if you’re reading it aloud to a child, you do need to add extra detail and context to make it clear what’s going on e.g. they’re at a spa now now, or they have a new beetroot friend. But the drawings are exquisite and it’s rather lovely seeing Rabbit grow in confidence with each page.