Books in brief

      

    I read Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel when it came out last year and I thought it was an outstanding novel. I'm so pleased to see that it has just won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the prize being shared between author and translator (it struck me that John Cullen had done his job particularly sensitively).

 

    

     A more recent but very different reading highlight has been David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet. It has now been released (so all rush to shops and libraries without delay!), and I hope it gets the enormous readership and recognition that it deserves.

Writing historical fiction successfully is no easy task, and David Mitchell discusses the pitfalls - and the genre's beginnings - in this very good article.