The Map and the Territory, By Michel Houellebecq

Have Michel Houellebecq and Martin Amis ever met? Despite a stylistic gulf – one (the Frenchman) cool, the other hot – they might be spiritual cousins severed by the Manche, or the Atlantic.

In this Goncourt-winning novel, as amiably mischievous as the enfant terrible ever gets, his satirical burlesques of the Parisian art world and of tourist kitsch in La France Profonde comes closer to his cross-Channel twin than ever.

And the grisly fate of writer "Michel Houellebecq" here has Amisian overtones. Both have a fondness for SF elements too – a futuristic coda ends Gavid Bowd's craftily sardonic translation.