MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
Notes From An Apocalypse
Calum Barnes looks at the books that are making sense of our darkest days

WHEN Britain went into lockdown in March, I gravitated towards the apocalyptic ambience.
The April publication of Mark O’Connell’s Notes From an Apocalypse (Granta) could not have been more timely, as the streets outside emptied.
O’Connell anatomises the fears and urges that drive survivalist culture with his characteristic dry wit, providing an essential tonic for unprecedented times.
More from this author

Uniquely gripping visions of the hidden social, economic and spiritual forces at play in 20th-century Edinburgh
It's difficult not to draw parallels between the insurrectionary attempt to overthrow the Scottish government in 1820 and today, says CALUM BARNES

The truth about the life of Argentine Trotskyist J Posadas is indeed stranger than fiction

Witty novel on the blank millennial mindset