Ed Perkins takes a look at some newly published titles.
The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams, £16.99 (£13.99)
Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy satirist Adams, who, sadly, died last year, hit a novelist's block in final years of a wonderfully creative life. Material from his hard drive has been retrieved to form this wodge of extracts, including chapters of a new Dirk Gently novel and a letter written to the Eagle when 12. Interesting scratchings for collectors of the Adams family of writings.
Kylie Naked by Jenny Stanley-Clarke and Nigel Goodall, Ebury £14.99 (Borders price, £11.99)
Biog with photos of the ex-Neighbours mechanic who, with her much admired posterior, became an iconic diva. Will Kylie Naked gratify naturists? They should be so lucky.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Canongate £12.99 (£10.99)
Imaginative novel finds boy called Pi on a lifeboat after a ship sinks. Other crew include an injured zebra, a hyena, an orang-utan and a Bengal tiger. As their astonishing journey progresses the animals assert their places in the food chain. How will the boy survive? Or, as football fans might sing, will it be a case of "Who ate all the Pi's?"
The World We Live In by Will Hutton, Little Brown £17.99 (£14.99)
Scholarly rant suggests that Britain should ditch our conservative American cousins with their calamitous inequalities and embrace our more liberal European brothers and sisters. Gets you thinking deeply, doesn't it? (Except those of you still pondering over Kylie's rump.)
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