Gold Boy, Emerald Girl
Yiyun Li
Fourth Estate, £7.99
The world is divided in two: those who are curious about other people's stories and those who are not. Or so believes a character in this fascinating, sometimes heartbreaking collection of short stories by the Chinese-American author Yiyun Li, previously a winner of both the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award and the Guardian First Book Award. There is a reflective, quiet tone to this book: a woman looking back on her life confesses that she has always loved trees more than people; a grandmother tells the story of the three sworn sisters who are no longer friends; a man seeks out a father in trouble to share his own experience of being wrongly accused. There is loneliness within families and relationships, and kindness among strangers, all described in Li's crisp, subtle style, and leaving you, by the end, more curious about the world and the everyday details of those around. Sorcha Hamilton
Maggot
Paul Muldoon
Faber, £9.99
Borges might have had Paul Muldoon in mind when he said: "Poetry is a mysterious chess, whose chessboard and whose pieces change as in a dream." Muldoon's latest, Maggot, adds to the solidity of his considerable achievement. As ever, the energy of his imagination, the linguistic vitality and the incisive wit, as well as his unique outlook and style, are on dazzling display – and the safety nets are left outside the tent. Maggot's several linked and interlocking sequences ('Plan B', 'When the Pie was Opened', 'The Side Project', 'Wayside Shrines') work wonderfully as unsettling narratives that lead us on fascinating journeys. Sandro Botticelli: The Adoration of the Magiand a number of the shorter, more tightly coiled and concise lyrics (A Christmas in the Fifties, Quail, The Sod Farm) are striking examples of the poet's appealing way with words. Muldoon is as incantatory as ever, delivering the breeziest of lines with delightful aplomb. Gerard Smyth
Look at Me
Jennifer Egan
Corsair, £8.99
The American writer Jennifer Egan won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, an ambitious pastiche of contemporary American life . Look at Me, six years in gestation and published just prior to the 9/11 attacks, mines similar territories, it too being a sprawling portrait of a culture obsessed with identity and image. The central characters of Egan's exhaustive narrative are Charlotte Swenson, a Manhattan model who has undergone reconstructive facial surgery after a near-fatal car crash, and her companion, the mysterious Z, a dangerous emigre and would-be terrorist sluiced in hatred for the American dream. Egan's 500-page novel pounds the streets of its central question: are we simply how others perceive us or are we rebellious sprites living behind our faces like actors behind the drapes? She writes like a waitress on rollerblades: fast, hyperbolic, elegant, brave. Nevertheless, Look at Me,though passionately wrought, never stood a chance of being stranger than truth. Hilary Fannin
The Russian Court at Sea – The Last Days of a Great Dynasty: The Romanovs’ Voyage into Exile
Frances Welch
Short Books, £7.99
As the Bolshevik revolution gathered pace, members of the Russian monarchy had to make a stark choice: remain in situ to face an uncertain fate at the hands of their former subjects or flee the country. Welch's book presents an account of one such flight, that of 17 members of the royal family aboard HMS Marlborough, a British battleship that had been dispatched by Queen Alexandra to aid her sister, and the mother of the tsar, the Dowager Empress Marie. Re-creating the two-week journey of April 1919 with vivid intimacy, the book portrays some memorable characters – Felix Youssoupov, guitar-playing former cross-dresser and Rasputin's murderer, for one – as well as familial infighting and intrigue. The subsequent fortunes and misfortunes of the royals are briefly covered, the conversion of Princess Sofka to communism being a particularly interesting example. A fascinating, poignant portrait of a bizarre collection of people caught up in the chaos of their exodus. Sebastian Clare
Netherwood
Jane Sanderson
Sphere, £8.99
The increased popularity of historical TV dramas has somewhat blunted the reputation of the art of good, solid storytelling. This is a pity, as writers such as Jane Sanderson excel in the art. Netherwood is a meticulously researched, wonderfully told and entirely engrossing tale of life in the Yorkshire village attached to the great estate of the earl of Netherwood, and it is a joy. Set in 1904, the story deals with a period of change that ushered in the decreasing power of the upper classes, the growth of trade unions and the determined endeavours of women to become fully recognised members of society. Eve Williams is dealt a blow when her husband dies in a coal-mining accident, but she turns tragedy into an opportunity that has far-reaching consequences for friends and family. Sanderson knows her audience and includes a nice measure of romance that compliments the more serious issues rather than dominating them. Netherwood's sequel will be eagerly awaited. Claire Looby
