Eclipse, by J. Bern let (Faber, £8.99 in UK)

Seconds before his car drops into a canal, Kees Zomer is conscious that "the left-hand side of the world has disappeared, suddenly gone". After his dramatic escape from the canal, he has no memory of language. Incapable of communicating, he wanders through an urban landscape which has been transformed into a surreal world. With its flashes of similarity to the work of J.B. Ballard, Zomer's strange book is an entertainingly offbeat, "quick-moving, vividly absurdist tale by one of Holland's "most interesting writers. Yet however much one enjoys it, there are nagging feelings of deja vu - and the ending is limp.