Sisters, edited by Penelope Farmer, (Penguin, £9.99 in UK)

`Sisters are like human wonderbras; uplifting and supportive" Kathy Lette. "Sisters are a defence against life's cruel circumstances" Nancy Mitford. "Sisters are life's cruel circumstances" Jessica Mitford. Which of those definitions suits your sister? Penelope Farmer has gathered together a dizzying array of sisters, both fictional and real, and left them in this anthology to fight it out among themselves for the reader's attention. There are extracts from plays, novels, diaries, letters, poems, and newspaper articles, many of which are contemporary. The pieces which work best are the short soundbites, and the non-fiction extracts. Extracting a few paragraphs from a novel simply because it mentions sisters does not make for interesting reading. Which is, unfortunately, most of the anthology. If you like your sister, don't give her this book.