Reader's Choice

The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy (Flamingo, £16.99 in the UK), is this year's Booker Prize winner. Rahel, a two-egg twin, returns to her home, her twin and her past; to the Terror, a story so old it goes back further than the Love Laws; to a time when it was decided who should be loved, how and how much. The book is deft and lyrical, with the candidness of a child's mind. Each chapter carries you like a wave closer to the Terror that touched twin lives at eight, when things were forever, when the river had fish in it and at night the broken yellow moon in it. A literary piece sharpened by a second reading.