The Book Of Ruth by John Irving (Black Swan, £7.99 in UK)

No one could ever accuse Irving of economy or grace of style. However, this characteristically sprawling, Dickensian romp is his best book since The Cider House Rules (1985). Convolutedly plotted, whacky, sexist, burdened by its know-it-all authorial voice, gusto sustains it. Interestingly for Irving, instead of his usual cast of grotesques, here he has created a band of selfish characters who are not nice but are believable. Even Ruth, abandoned at four years old by a beautiful mother unable to bear the deaths of her adored sons, is an angry, aggressive tomboy hiding behind her success as a writer. Running parallel to her life are the antics of her writer-father, an egomaniac whose idea of bliss is autographing copies of his books while shopping for his next sexual conquest, invariably a large breasted, unhappy young mother. Far fetched and sentimental, still the dialogue is funny. Anyone in search of a long, chaotic and likeable summer yarn need look no further.