Reader's Choice

While reading complaints about the "silly season" in the media as I relaxed on my summer break, it was sheer coincidence that one of the books I had bought at the airport was Of Love and Other Demons, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Penguin, £5.99 in UK). The idea for the book came out of the desperation felt by journalists who have to file a story when there are no major news stories breaking. The demolition of the local convent and the excavation of its graveyard, uncovering a stream of living hair, generates not only a story for the morning paper but a most absorbing book. If you love good fiction this book will enchant you.