Julian Barnes

The Lemon Table by Julian Barnes (Picador, March 2005)
A collection of acidly intelligent short stories about growing old.
Get this book from Amazon.

Joanna Bourke

Fear: A Cultural History by Joanna Bourke (Virago, February 2005)
How predominant fears vary with time and culture.
Get this book from Amazon.

An Intimate History of Killing by Joanna Bourke (Granta Books, 2000)
Evidence that soldiers experience pleasure as well as fear and horror.
Get this book from Amazon.

Jonathan Coe

The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe (Penguin, June 2005)
Sequel to The Rotters' Club.
Get this book from Amazon.

9th and 13th by Jonathan Coe (Penguin, May 2005)
A collection of short fiction and non-fiction pieces.
Get this book from Amazon.

The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe (Penguin, 2004)
Coe's drama about a group of school friends in 1970s Birmingham.
Get this book from Amazon.

Dave Eggers

How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers (Hamish Hamilton, March 2005)
Bravura short stories.
Get this book from Amazon.

Short, Short Stories by Dave Eggers (Penguin, May 2005)
A pocket-sized book of mini-stories first published in The Guardian.
Get this book from Amazon.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (Picador, 2001)
Eggers' freewheeling autobiography.
Get this book from Amazon.

You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers (Penguin, 2004)
The author's first novel, a satire on American ignorance and consumerism.
Get this book from Amazon.

Thomas Friedman

The World Is Flat: A brief history of the 21st century by Thomas Friedman
A punchy account of globalisation.
Get this book from Amazon.

Malcolm Gladwell

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Allan Lane, January 2005)
How intuition works and why we should trust it.
Get this book from Amazon.

The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference by Malcolm Gladwell (Abacus, 2002)
How 'ideas and products and messages and behaviours spread just like viruses do'.
Get this book from Amazon.

Vesna Goldsworthy

Chernobyl Strawberries by Vesna Goldsworthy (Atlantic Books, March 2005)
An extraordinary memoir of childhood in Yugoslavia.
Get this book from Amazon.

Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber and Faber, May 2005)
Ishiguro's new and haunting novel.
Get this book from Amazon.

David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (Sceptre, February 2005)
An ambitious work that challenges the conventions of storytelling.
Get this book from Amazon.

Ali Smith

Hotel World by Ali Smith (Penguin, 2002)
Smith's innovative and much admired first novel.
Get this book from Amazon.

The Accidental by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton, May 2005)
Hot of the presses and launched at Hay.
Get this book from Amazon.