Thomas Peermohamed Lambert: Shibboleth A campus novel for the febrile age of social media warfare, Lambert skewers the modern obsession with identity politics, and how intellectually overstuffed but emotionally immature undergraduates exploit modish ideas of Diversity and Inclusion for their own ends, going to ridiculous lengths to claim that they belong, however tenuously, to some exploited minority (just as long as it’s not the Jews). It’s not Kingsley Amis or Malcolm Bradbury, to be sure, but then we live in less innocent times.

Elizabeth Bear: Ancestral Night Haimey Dz spends her working life cruising the galaxy for salvage. But when she and her crew find signs of interstellar genocide, she gets embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game with space pirates, who seem to know more about her own identity than she does herself. An entertaining modern space opera, full of exotic aliens, chthonic megastructures and mind-blasting physics.

Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares: If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies My review for this book got so long that it demanded its own spot. So here it is.

Florence Knapp In the aftermath of the Great Storm of 1987, Cora, ex-ballerina and mother of two, is on her way to register the name of her newborn son. But what should she call him? Her husband insists that he be Gordon — his own name, and that of his father. She, in contrast, prefers Julian. Her nine-year-old daughter Maia favours Bear. What follows is a three-way sliding-doors novel exploring the consequences of each of these choices. It sounds fun and fluffy, but it’s not. If like me you are appalled by the very thought of domestic violence (and how common it is) then this will be a difficult if excellent read.

Richard Osman The Impossible Fortune Yes, the Man on the Telly is at it again, with yet another whodunit featuring the ageing sleuths from the Thursday Murder Club. If you’ve read any of his others you’ll know what to expect: pin-sharp plotting affectionately wrapped in warm humour.

Mick Herron Slow Horses I had heard of this from a televisual adaptation (which I have not seen). The ‘Slow Horses’ are MI5 agents who, as a result of errors professional or personal find themself exiled to the dispiriting Slough House, a sin-bin in which they are condemned to a life of pointless paper-shuffling by the Jabbaesque Jackson Lamb. But a plot by a group of extremists to behead their hostage live on the internet brings the Slow Horses in from the cold. Well-written if slow in places, Slow Horses is less about MI5 than the narcissism of management in any large, sclerotic organisation. Unlike some other spy-thriller writers, the author has no direct experience of spook work, though he knows a thing or two about the dead hand of HR.

Michael Bond Animate In this robust raspberry to human exceptionalism, Michael Bond shows that the lengths to which people have gone to justify our exalted estate only point up our close relationship with the animals with whom we share this planet. [DISCLAIMER: I was sent this by the publisher for an endorsement].

Mick Herron Dead Lions Slower horses: whereas Slow Horses started with a breathtaking action scene, this sequel takes a long time to get going, and when it does, the outlandish plot is a cross between The Wicker Man and Hot Fuzz. But what makes this and Slow Horses compelling, apart from the sly and sardonic humour, is the characterisation. The slobbish but crafty Jackson Lamb; the brittle recovering alcoholic Catherine Standish; the brave but impulsive River Cartwright, and all the rest of the scheming, damaged cast. The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.