I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son and The Seven Good Years may two more books by middle-class, middle-aged men, but the journeys they undertake are profound.

The author’s new novel J confounds one’s expectations but confirms Jacobson’s reputation.

We are living through a glorious age of rewrites, reversions, pastiches and homages, and the continuation of the Asterix series is a prime example of how well this can work.

In a world now dominated by vast, mysterious forces that none of us understands or can control, the comforts of crime fiction are perhaps more apparent than ever. Ian Sansom examines why detective stories continue to exert such power over us.