BOOKS / Recommended

The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh, tr. Frank Palmos, Secker, pounds 8.99. Winner of this year's pounds 10,000 Independent Foreign Fiction Award. Remarkable novel by a former North Vietnamese soldier.

One Art: Selected Letters of Elizabeth Bishop ed. Robert Giroux, Chatto, pounds 25. The moving letters of one of America's finest poets. Review by Jamie McKendrick, 30 April.

The Bridge over the Drina by Ivo Andric, tr. Lovett F Edwards, Harvill pounds 8.99. Four centuries in the life of a bridge near Sarajevo. Review by Hugo Barnacle, 16 April.

Bitter Winds by Harry Wu, Wiley, pounds 14.95. Extremely striking and poignant memoir of life in the Chinese gulag. Review by Isabel Hilton, 18 June.

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, Allen Lane, pounds 20. Learned and witty guide to the human urge to talk and write. Review by Robert Winder, 15 April.

The Marriage of Time and Convenience by Robert Winder, Harvill, pounds 14.99. Novel by this newspaper's literary editor. Not reviewed here, but mysteriously hailed elsewhere as both 'a small work of art' and 'an absolute clunker'.