Welcome to ABC Arts' monthly book column. Each month, we present a shortlist of new releases read and recommended by The Bookshelf's Kate Evans and The Book Show's Claire Nichols and Sarah L'Estrange — alongside recommendations from freelance writer and critic Declan Fry.
All four read voraciously and widely, and the only guidelines we give them are: make it a new release; make it something you think is great.
The resulting list features a melodrama inspired by the the real-life maybe-murder of teenage duchess Lucrezia de' Medici; a romp through the illegal dance halls of 20s London with a gangster queen; a revelatory novel inspired by Virginia's husband Leonard Woolf; "biting and gloriously satirical" fiction set in colonial Rwanda; and a sharp, funny collection of essays about late capitalism's cultural offspring — from polyamory to cryptocurrency and secret societies.
