Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Interior Chinatown by Charles YuWillis Wu doesn't perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: he's merely Generic Asian Man. Every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here too. . . but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guythe highest aspiration he can imagine for a Chinatown denizen. Or is it? After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis

It is a place he will never forget

from Marie Curie

and quick – witted djinni Bartimaeus

who was written off by his professors as a hopeless loser

Charlotte Higgins reinterprets some of the most enduring stories of all time

Tintin can’t help wondering if there’s an important clue they might have overlooked

Now what happens needs to be understood from that point of view

with an interlude in Mao's China

He expects to find a lonely pioneer tombstone in a sea of nearly-ripe wheat

design and the media have changed our vision forever

This psychological crime thriller by the popular author Sidney Sheldon

in the ice of the Antarctic and the thundering surf of the African coast