Eurotrash
Christian Kracht (translated by Daniel Bowles)
Serpent’s Tail, £12.99, pp192
In Kracht’s semi-autobiographical novel, the narrator – named Christian Kracht – is en route to visit his alcoholic and psychologically damaged mother in Zurich. As they embark on a road trip before she returns to a psychiatric hospital, their conversations and memories roam through the traumas of the past – from sexual abuse to the family’s Nazi-sympathising history. In the hands of Kracht’s unreliable narrator, the result is an unsettling novel that leaves the reader unsure where the boundary lies between truth and fiction.
Overcoming: A Workbook
Michelle Obama
Viking, £16.99, pp208
Based on her bestseller The Light We Carry, the former first lady’s workbook combines life advice with practical tips to combat personal issues ranging from low self-esteem to combating fears. Highly interactive, it is designed to help readers engage with their emotional and psychological wellbeing, including drawing exercises to visualise your personal armour, tools for tracking self-destructive habits and advice on identifying the qualities you value in personal relationships.
What Writers Read: 35 Writers on their Favourite Book
Edited by Pandora Sykes
Bloomsbury, £9.99, pp208 (paperback)
An eclectic array of writers, from David Nicholls and Monica Ali to Elizabeth Strout and William Boyd, share short essays about the books they return to again and again. Marian Keyes explains how her love for the eccentricity of Cold Comfort Farm was cemented at an especially low ebb in her life, while Ali Smith describes Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book as “a kind of magic”. Published in aid of the National Literacy Trust, it’s a perfect literary stocking-filler.
• To order Eurotrash, Overcoming: A Workbook or What Writers Read, go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
