Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan*, her much anticipated sophomore novel, is a vastly different book to Acts of Desperation. Where I found the latter frustratingly angsty, Ordinary Human Failings is, by comparison, a book full of the deep complexities of socio-economic inequality, abuses of power and myriad traumas. Consigliato a chi predilige le storie introspettive e a chi non dispiace immergersi nei drammi famigliari. A woman chases her double across Europe, in an investigation into fraying identity from the author of The Man Who Saw Everything.

In this book, a young girl is murdered at a London housing estate, and another young girl in the complex, Lucy, is suspected of having committed the crime. Lucy is taken into questioning, and her family members - her young mother Carmel, her alcoholic uncle Richie, and her detached grandfather John - wait over a stretch of 24 hours in a hotel while she's being detained. During this time, Tom, a reporter, is on a mission to break this story, and speaks with the family members one-on-one to learn more about the events that unfolded, but also about the dynamics of their family. What we get, then, are long sections in the past, giving us pieces to understand how this poor, Irish family ended up in this situation in London.

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The elements of the book—young mother, alcoholism, leaving Ireland, unscrupulous tabloid newspaper—are all pretty predictable and can feel a bit stereotypical, but the book also does try and dig a bit further into the family and how small failings have an impact. The journalist, Tom, doesn't really have much of a plotline, and some hints about him being able to be a chameleon in different settings and how he tries to get in with the family could've been explored a bit further in the narrative.

O rdinary Human Failings is an ensemble piece focused on the adult siblings Carmel and Richie Green and their parents, Rose and John. At the end of the 1970s, the shame of Carmel’s teenage pregnancy prompts the family to move from Waterford in Ireland to a London housing estate. This is the story of the murder of a little girl, Mia. A young woman of the neighborhood is suspected of the murder. They live in a poor community, so there’s class commentary throughout the novel (or what I read). In particular, you follow a journalist character who is covering the murder, and the patronizing way he approaches the people of the community is highlighted. The novel includes his articles, showing how the media smears the poor. The Irish author follows her comic debut, Exciting Times, with an ensemble novel about commitment and betrayal set around a wedding.A collection of essays from the 1970s by one of the most influential feminists of the 20th century, gathered together here for the first time. Love and betrayal in early 20th-century Malaysia from the Booker-shortlisted author, inspired by Somerset Maugham’s visit to Penang. Ordinary Human Failings follows a tabloid reporter Tom who commits himself to the tragic case of the death of a 3 year old girl in an estate. News and speculation follows the case leading Tom to investigate allegations against an Irish family who live in the estate- the Greens. This novel, set in the 1990s adds pressure to the Irish diaspora that settled in the London landscape at this time. The Greens are seen as outsiders, with Carmel, Richie, John and Carmel’s daughter Lucy all being marked for their unusual quirks of alcoholism and denialism. When We Cease to Understand the World explored the far edges of scientific discovery; this is another genre-blending mix based around the polymath Johnny von Neumann, who worked on the Manhattan project.

Barely known in the west, Kim Jong-un’s younger sister exerts enormous influence as propagandist-in-chief and second-in-command of the secretive authoritarian regime. Alongside the events in London, as the investigation continues, we learn about the lives of each of the characters in Waterford before they moved to London. This is skilfully done, shedding light on where we find them in the book. Richie It’s often quoted, but Tolstoys ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’ really resonates in this book. And as Carmel says to Tom at one stage The author of How to Do Nothing imagines a future in which we free ourselves from the timetables imposed by the profit motive, and rediscover the pace and rhythms of the pre-industrial world.

From the Chaos Walking author, an exploration of sexuality and masculinity focusing on a gay teenager. The follow-up to her prize-winning debut The Manningtree Witches is a dark story of “insatiable hunger” set in revolutionary France.

Nearly a decade after Let Me Be Frank With You, this final novel in the Frank Bascombe series finds Frank towards the end of his life, acting as caregiver to his son. Despite this being a relatively slim book, Nolan also accommodates tightly bound tales of the rest of the Greens: of Carmel’s saintly, dutiful late mother, Rose, and her marriage to the withdrawn, hard-drinking John – a man who never recovered from humiliation in a previous marriage. Most excruciating is the story of the son from that union: the lonely, alcoholic Richie, who drinks to try to feel connected but only succeeds in pushing life away. Following the Booker-shortlisted The Trees, an absurdist caper with bite about the exploits of a brilliant maths professor and an aspiring Bond villain. From the author of Fates and Furies and Matrix, a 17th-century “female Robinson Crusoe” in which a young English servant flees from a starving colonial encampment into the American wilderness. The story of how Victorian and Edwardian Britain fell in love with cats, from the development of prize breeds to Louis Wain’s artistic obsession.Like Eliza Clark’s recent novel, Penance, Ordinary Human Failings explores the effects of class on the justice system, and one’s chances in life more broadly, as the Greens face the fallout of a legacy of neglect. Some of the characters evolve; for others, realistically, change is out of reach. “The things you did or failed to do could not be erased by anything, not even love,” Carmel comes to understand in a quiet but powerful conclusion. “But still, they tried. The trying would be the life’s work.” Mia Levitin A fast-paced tale of idealism and political infighting from Eleanor Catton. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian This subversive fairytale debut set in an alternative Hong Kong interrogates life under oppressive regimes. Following the brilliant short-story collection The Dominant Animal, a tough, beautiful novel about a horse trainer drawn from conversations between subject and author. The Guardian columnist and self-confessed news junkie draws on years of reporting to trace the roots of our toxic politics and offer good reasons not to switch off.