Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith

Michael Chabon’s new novel is Telegraph Avenue. He is “one of the most imaginative fiction writers of his generation,” wrote Steve Almond. “His readers have come to expect, along with silky prose and high-concept plots, a thrilling immersion in far-flung, intricately conceived worlds.” Zadie Smith’s new novel is NW. Her writing “reflects a lively, unselfconscious, rigorous, erudite and earnestly open mind that’s busy refining its view of life, literature and a great deal in between,” wrote Ella Taylor. “Smith shows herself in more ways than one to be a very old, empathetic head on ridiculously young shoulders.”