BOOK OF THE WEEK

How To Be Both by Ali Smith -  published in hardback by Hamish Hamilton, priced £16.99 (ebook £5.69). Available now

Ali Smith, author of acclaimed novels The Accidental and Hotel World, loves to use unconventional forms.

The Booker Prize short-listed How To Be Both begins as a poem, changes to standard paragraphs, then goes back again to a poem; it is anything but an ordinary read.

The book is split into two sections; one following the spirit of the Renaissance painter Francesco del Cossa as he explores the modern world, and the other focusing on troubled teenager George.

It has been printed with the stories in different orders, as Smith insists that either can be read first.

Nicknamed the 'heir to Virginia Woolf', Smith explores the idea that gender isn't fixed.

Del Cossa is born a girl but decides to become a boy to further her career, and when we first meet the somewhat androgynous looking George, she is presumed to be a boy.

In fact, the entire novel proves that time, forms, genders and narratives can be changed.

Such an unusual book may seem intimidating on first glance; it certainly makes you think and it's definitely worth reading up on Smith's theories on it afterwards.

However, the story flows effortlessly, and it's an enjoyable, witty and gripping read.

This looks set to become her most talked-about novel yet; book clubs, literary academics and indeed every keen reader, will have a field day analysing it.

9/10

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FICTION

The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse - published in hardback by Orion, priced £16.99 (ebook £8.99). Available now

Two years after Kate Mosse completed her Languedoc Trilogy, a love letter to Carcassonne, she returns with a love letter to her home village of Fishbourne, near Chichester, on the Sussex coast.

It is 1912 and 22-year-old Connie Gifford lives with her father in Blackthorn House with her widowed, alcoholic father.

He once owned a successful taxidermy Museum, but stuffed animals, once loved by Victorians, are now out of fashion and father and daughter live a strange, isolated life.

Ten years previously, Connie had fallen down the stairs of the museum and lost her memory. She has occasional flashbacks of an older girl and a woman who was loving and made a happy home.

One day she finds a young woman floating in the stream at the bottom of her garden.

While discovering that the woman has been murdered, Connie also has to deal with her father who has gone missing, a Chichester man called Harry who is looking for his father, Dr Woolston, a man and woman secretly watching her house and a storm that threatens to flood the village.

As these events trigger more flashbacks, Connie finds herself caught up in a web of mystery, secrets, blackmail and murder.

Mosse's homage to home is a delicious, gothic page-turner with an engaging heroine that will delight her fans.

9/10

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Head Of State by Andrew Marr is published in hardback by Fourth Estate, priced £18.99 (ebook £6.99). Available now

Andrew Marr has, we are told, penned Head Of State as a 'political thriller'. Political, undoubtedly; thriller, not so much.

Instead, it reads as a funny, satirical and rather fun-poking House Of Cards-esque account of the state of affairs in British politics in 2017.

Opening just days before a referendum on the continued membership of the EU, the 'old Queen' dead and replaced by a King, the Conservative Prime Minister is hard at work at Number 10 in a last-minute attempt to get the yes vote across the line. Ostensibly.

What is instead going on behind the scenes is a conspiracy of ludicrous proportions. A dastardly cover up by the PM's team - ruthless, deadly and determined politicians - is at once utterly unbelievable and rather comical.

There is, of course, a dark underbelly to this implausible, yet deftly crafted, plot, but overall this book is a fun romp rather than thought-provoking thriller.

5/10

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Gwendolen: A Novel by Diana Souhami - published in hardback by Quercus, priced £16.99 (ebook £7.59). Available September 25

In Gwendolen, Diana Souhami takes one of the central characters from Daniel Deronda, George Eliot's final novel, and re-tells the story from her point of view.

Gwendolen Harleth is a beautiful Victorian heroine, trapped in an abusive marriage. Daniel Deronda is the man she is secretly in love with, and her potential saviour.

The original novel is a fascinating, but flawed, attempt to fuse the story of an unhappy marriage with an exploration of early Zionist ideas.

Souhami ditches most of the Zionist theme, but her novel is similar to the original in that the sections on Gwendolen's marriage to the villainous Grandcourt are gripping, while anything involving the priggish Deronda drags.

Things get more interesting when the novel continues after Daniel Deronda ends and we see Gwendolen mixing in artistic Victorian society, with Eliot herself appearing as a character.

It's all reasonably good fun, if a bit lacking in subtlety.

6/10

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NON-FICTION

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate by Naomi Klein -  published in hardback by Allen Lane, priced GBP20 (ebook GBP8.03). Available now

Klein's previous bestsellers - No Logo, a diatribe against global brands, and The Shock Doctrine, a similarly hard-hitting demolition of neo-liberalism - are both essentials on the modern liberal's bookshelf.

With this latest book, she turns to climate change, arguing that an unstoppable crisis is almost upon us.

Part of the problem, she says, lies with our global society, which persists in "looking away".

To be a climate change denier, she says, you don't have to be a smog-toting Republican in an SUV, but just "making tea, driving to the grocery store, having kids".

We need to wake up to the fact that our economic system of global capitalism is untenable and wilfully destructive.

Her solution - to abandon our socio-economic system completely - might seem rash, but there will be few reading this genuinely frightening book who won't hear echoes of Cassandra.

As with her other books, Klein can be accused of leaning too far to the left to be wholly loved by the mainstream, but she's no fool.

Maybe one day we'll wish we'd listened.

9/10

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Hopeful by Omid Djalili - published in hardback by Headline, priced £20. Available now

Growing up in a London 'guesthouse' for sick Iranians could have provided stand-up comic Omid Djalili with a variety of different career paths - perhaps into the medical profession, languages, or even social work.

Either way, it would have seemed unlikely at the time that he would go on to have parts in Hollywood blockbusters like Gladiator, Sex And The City and The Mummy.

Comedy wasn't high on the 48-year-old's agenda as a child - aside from, during a period of fascination with playing cards, saying he wanted to be 'the joker' when he grew up.

Had he passed all his A-Levels first time, he could have been an astronaut.

Yet it was a role in a university theatre production and a summer shadowing a Professor that steered his path towards acting and comedy.

Hopeful is a warm insight into the diverse life Djalili has had, charting the struggles of any youngster, along with the added pressure of trying to find his own cultural identity.

8/10

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CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK

The New Small Person by Lauren Child - published in hardback by Puffin, priced £10.99. Available now

Elmore Green is adored by his parents, he can watch whatever he chooses on TV and eat all his jellybeans by himself because his parents do "NOT eat jellybeans".

But one day, all this changes, when a new small person arrives at his house, who knocks Elmore's things over, follows him around and licks his prized jellybeans.

Elmore wishes the small person would return to wherever it came from, but his parents respond by moving the two boys into the same room.

Elmore's animosity towards his brother continues until one night, he has a nightmare and the small person gets into his bed to comfort him.

Thereafter, he starts to share his toys and superhero outfits and, even his jellybeans, well... almost.

From the award-winning creator of Charlie And Lola, comes a book both drawn and told from the perspective of an only child, who has to adapt when a sibling comes along.

It's heartwarming and funny by turns and beautifully illustrated. An instant, timeless classic.

8/10

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BESTSELLERS FOR WEEK ENDING SEPTEMBER 10

HARDBACKS

1. The Children Act, Ian McEwan

2. Jamie's Comfort Food, Jamie Oliver

3. The Establishment: And How They Get Away with it, Owen Jones

4. Personal, Lee Child

5. Edge of Eternity: The Century Trilogy, Ken Follett

6. The Monogram Murders, Sophie Hannah and Agatha Christie

7. The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell

8. Noah Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Harari

9. The Killers of the King:The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I, Charles Spencer

10. The Dying of the Light: Skulduggery Pleasant, Derek Landy The King's Curse, Philippa Gregory (Compiled by Waterstones)

PAPERBACKS

1. The Pointless Book: Started by Alfie Deyes, Finished by You, Alfie Deyes

2. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

3. Travels with Epicurus: Meditations from a Greek Island on the Pleasures, Daniel Klein

4. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler

5. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

6. Saints of the Shadow Bible, Ian Rankin

7. The Fault In Our Stars, John Green

8. The Maze Runner: Maze Runner Series, James DashnerIf I Stay, Gayle Forman

9. The Girl with All the Gifts (v. 6), M R Carey

10. The Quick, Lauren Owen

(Compiled by Waterstones)

EBOOKS

1. Daughter, Jane Shemilt

2. The Beach Cafe, Lucy Diamond

3. Captivated by You, Sylvia Day

4. Before I Go To Sleep, S J Watson

5. Call the Doctor, Ronald White-Cooper

6. Personal, Lee Child

7. Eeny Meeny: DI Helen Grace, M J Arlidge

8. Sycamore Row, John Grisham

9. The Savage Altar, Asa Larsson

10. The Thief Taker, C.S. Quinn

(Chart compiled by amazon.co.uk)