You get caught up in trends. You spy the sleek cover countless times, that which is gripped firmly by the hands of commuters and perused intensely by slightly weary yet focused eyes, and your interest is piqued – naturally – because this is a trilogy that literally millions are reading at a particular time. Therefore, this is a book that you must read, because everyone is reading it. These are my …

At a short literary conference, in which I speak tentatively about McEwan’s Saturday, an ex-tutor rather probingly, provocatively cross-examines: ‘But isn’t he just an old fart?’ To which I reply: ‘I, personally, just don’t see that reflected in his writing’.

Because McEwan is the master of writing on relationships: this is his forte. It is, it could be argued, precisely what we read a McEwan …

It was, initially, largely disregarded by many publishers in the UK. A major faux pas: they actually missed out on a unique, intriguing and thought-provoking novel, one that centres on time and chronology, memory and the subversion of Aristotelian arcs. Remainder is, and there’s not an easier way to say it, a comically surreal text that places you within the psyche of a hero who is uncertain of …