Paperbacks: The Pesthouse, By Jim Crace

Picador £7.99

To quote one of his early titles, Jim Crace has mapped out an entire fictional continent. His eighth novel, a post-disaster journey into America's medieval future, is written with all his dreamlike exactitude and narrative guile. It also offers a more loving, less despairing answer to McCarthy's The Road. Picador has used the occasion to re-package the backlist of a hugely gifted, utterly original writer. In the strictest sense, he leads spellbound readers into a world of his own. So visit Craceland now.