Brother of the More Famous Jack, by Barbara Trapido (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)

Granted a university place on the strength of a perceptive comment she makes about Jane Austen's Emma, narrator Katherine finds a coincidental meeting leads to her becoming part of her philosophy professor's household. The atmosphere is convincingly eccentric, a cross between Brideshead Revisited and a parody of To the Lighthouse. Raised by her widowed mother, Katherine comes from a conventional world and so is immediately impressed by the professor's beautiful, Bohemian wife who casually gives birth to her sixth child as the family looks on. Katherine also falls for Roger, the spoilt but handsome eldest son. Her life turns into a litany of grief, but she proves a survivor as well as a lively, intelligent narrator. First published in 1982, this assured, bittersweet debut impresses throughout as an economic and humorous variation on Iris Murdoch's world of intense high achievers.