The Impossible Lives Of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer (Faber, £7.99)

The Impossible Lives Of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer (Faber, £7.99)

As a fan of Greer's intelligent and thoughtful exploration of women's inner lives, especially compelling in this time-shifting tale where Greta Wells has the chance to live in the New York of three different eras after her brother dies and her partner leaves her, I would prefer a cover that does justice to this serious novel about love and loss.

Bad Feminist: Essays by Roxane Gay (Corsair, £12.99)

Like Caitlin Moran's hugely popular How To Be A Woman, Gay's work is personal, her essays focusing on first-hand experience, from racism to the language of sexual violence. What differentiates her from Moran, though, is a very welcome and more overtly political emphasis, making her work simultaneously smart and something to identify with.

Enon by Paul Harding (Windmill, £8.99)

Pulitzer Prize-winning Harding goes gently yet deeply into those areas where most of us do not want to go in this unputdownable second novel about the death of a child. Like Marilynne Robinson, he continues with the quiet tale of an unassuming family, the one from his debut, Tinkers, and like her, makes us know them as if they were our own.

Rose Kennedy: The Life And Times Of A Political Matriarch by Barbara A Perry (Norton, £9.99)

It's hard to think of a more elusive yet possibly more influential female figure in 20th-century American politics than Rose Kennedy, mother of John and Bobby. Perry's biography highlights the extent of her own political electioneering, which is far greater than one might have imagined, and her formidable fondness for her children. Hugely compelling.