Playing Games
Huma Qureshi
Sceptre, £16.99, pp320
Sisters Hana and Mira are archetypal opposites. While Hana is a driven lawyer with a seemingly model marriage and perfect home, single Mira lives in a houseshare and works in a cafe. She’s also wrestling with unrealised literary dreams, but when she overhears Hana and her husband rowing over whether or not to try for a baby, their bitter words – words that will pitch Hana’s life into freefall – inspire a play. Huma Qureshi’s observant, bluesy debut novel may start slow, but it builds to an emotive meditation on the ethics of art and the resilience of family bonds.
Benny the Blue Whale: A Descent into Story, Language and the Madness of ChatGPT
Andy Stanton
Oneworld, £16.99, pp384
Andy Stanton is the author of the bestselling children’s series Mr Gum, books whose anarchic imaginings mask all the panic, grind and doubts that go into their writing. When Stanton’s techie cousin introduces him to ChatGPT – AKA “the magic what happened next machine” – he’s captivated by the idea of angst-free creativity. Accompanying the absurdist results of his AI collaboration (or should that be confrontation?) are lengthy footnotes that find him diving deep into the mysteries of narrative. Entertaining and alarmingly relevant, provocative and philosophically satisfying, it’s ultimately a profoundly human text.
The Darkness Manifesto: Why the World Needs the Night
Johan Eklöf (translated by Elizabeth DeNoma)
Vintage, £10.99, pp240 (paperback)
As the Swedish ecologist Johan Eklöf notes, every cell in every living organism on Earth has evolved to work in harmony with the rhythmic certainty that day is followed by night – then came the invention of the lightbulb. Bats, birds and moths are just a few of the creatures whose mating, hunting and pollinating behaviours are now disturbed by light pollution, and we humans are victims as well as perpetrators. At once rousing and poetic, this illuminating manifesto is full of precisely the kind of pocketable scientific titbits that will keep you reading well after your bedside light should have been switched off.
To order Playing Games, Benny the Blue Whale or The Darkness Manifesto go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
