New books to read this week

Fiction

Ordinary Love by Marie Rutkoski is published in hardback by Virago

Ordinary Love manages to be both incredibly sexy and saturated with a sense of deep foreboding. Teen sweethearts Emily and Gen fall in love while running for their small-town high school’s track team, then years later, lock eyes at a party in New York. In that moment, Emily’s broken marriage and her tentative steps towards creating a life of her own, as well as Gen’s 2012 Olympic hopes, slide out of focus as they consider whether first love can ever be rehabilitated. Marie Rutkoski deftly considers the nuances of Emily’s queerness and her shifting sense of self, against the driven, solidness of Gen’s personality. Meanwhile, the foreboding comes in the form of Jack, Emily’s grotesquely wealthy, coercive husband, whose behaviour is so insidious you want to scream at her to run, get out of there, he can’t be trusted, every time his name appears on the page. There has to be a sense of peril, but the only shard of this beautifully wrought story that doesn’t entirely ring true is Emily and Gen’s ceaseless capacity to misunderstand one another. Otherwise, Ordinary Love is really quite transcendent.

Births, Deaths & Marriages by Laura Barnett is published in hardback by Doubleday

The friends we make when we are young are not always the ones that see us through the momentous life moments that come later on. Groups splinter, people fall out, others die even, but if you’re lucky, and the timing falls right, some of those lost or strained friendships can be knit back together. Laura Barnett – author of The Versions of Us and Greatest Hits – explores the ways in which that can happen in the moving, clever and wrenching Births, Deaths & Marriages. Six university friends meet unexpectedly at a funeral and spiral in and out of touch – and love – throughout their 20s and 30s. Now approaching 40, one of their number is getting married and engineers for the whole gang to get back together, except you can’t perfectly revive the bonds of the past, can you? This measured, quietly poignant book will make you examine your own friendships, the ones you have clung to and those that have fallen away, as well as the choices you make as an adult, and how they might have sat with your 20-year-old self. Although several of the six could do with slightly meatier storylines, this is a lovely, absorbing read.

Actually, I’m A Murderer by Terry Deary is published in hardback by Constable

If someone introduced themselves to you as a hit man or murderer, what would you do? Assume they’re joking? Go and tell the police? This is how we’re introduced to four strangers on a night train to Newcastle in Terry Deary’s new book Actually, I’m A Murderer. In this fun page-turner, Deary – writer of the much-beloved Horrible Histories series – brings us into the lives of three different characters who each tell the story from their perspective. Can the cop catch the hitman? Is there more than one murderer at play? Actually, I’m a Murderer is a gripping book and perfect for Knives Out fans.

Non-fiction

The Genius Myth by Helen Lewis is published in hardback by Jonathan Cape

Why does Elon Musk fit our idea of a genius and not computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee? How did genius switch from something people have to something they are? And what is genius anyway? These are a few of the questions Helen Lewis, staff writer at The Atlantic and best-selling author, sets out to answer in this hugely entertaining book. She takes us on a journey from the Renaissance to Silicon Valley via, among others, English polymath Francis Galton (weird), the Tolstoys (very weird), IQ obsessives (peculiar), the Beatles and, of course, our modern-day tech bros, to try to pin down this elusive and shape-shifting concept. On the way, she gives us ample illustrations of how most works of genius are collaborative efforts, that great achievements rely on being in the right place at the right time, and that being outstanding in one area really doesn’t mean a person is exceptional in all.

Children’s book of the week

Mysteries of the Human Body: Weird and Wonderful Anatomy Explained by Dr Azmain Chowdhury, illustrated by Daniel Nelson, is published in hardback by Neon Squid

Ever wanted to know why people get butterflies in their tummies? Or why skin turns wrinkly when wet? Well, now you can find out the answers to these questions and more in this wonderful new non-fiction book for children. With stunning colour illustrations, Mysteries of the Human Body takes youngsters on a journey through the wonders of their body but also helps them understand the answers to their everyday questions, like: Why DO people have different eye colours? Can your heart really break? Are yawns contagious? And what exactly is deja vu? Packed with cool science facts, the book is sure to be a hit among groups of friends and within families. It would also make a great gift for any budding science enthusiast.