A meditation on morality and justice. An evisceration of endemic racism and police violence, that’s also hilarious and compulsive. Unexpected. Not least given how impeccably The Trees flows.

Yet perhaps this feat isn’t surprising coming from Mr Percival Everett, esteemed academic and experimental author with a gem-strewn backlist, who by dint of a Booker Prize nomination for this supernatural satire of a murder mystery, gained a slew of new fans. Luckily for converts and OGs alike, his next stroke of novelistic brilliance, Dr. No, has already landed.

A masterful, perspicacious and tender memoir from the inimitable British Vogue editor, Mr Edward Enninful, that’s a must-read for absolutely everyone. This bestseller lays bare what it takes to edge the editorial world (and so nudge the world) into a fairer, kinder place and transform a staid institution into a transformative force, while standing out from nigh on every pack, without forfeiting an ounce of humanity.

This lacerating and profound tragicomic noir, set in a near-future fascist simulacra of today’s US, opens with a BDSM water-boarding scene. A ridiculously funny one. After which, the laughs and hurts fly harder and faster as aspirational sadist, Lee, tries to trace their newfound queen – femdom doyenne, x – with enforced exportation looming ever nearer.

X may not be for everyone. But it is a razor-sharp distillation of now. A compelling and deviant, genre-queering, psyche-searing ride. And a pitch (black) perfect portrayal of how much abuse we’ll take – beg for – just to feel wholly alive.

Political allegory parlayed through a cast of animals – yet Glory is no straight-up Animal Farm as Gucci-heel sporting donkey, Dr Sweet Mother, megaphones at readers in Chapter One. This majestic, riveting and inventive take-down of tyranny hews closely to Zimbabwean history from Mr Robert Mugabe’s 2017 ousting until his death. But the insights enshrined within, and ardent undertone of hope against all odds, apply to any who’d like to make their nation, their society, their community, a more equitable place.

A poignant and searing memoir, and meditation on friendship, and grief, love and music by New Yorker staff writer, Mr Hua Hsu, Stay True is a life-affirming, thought-provoking, soul-stirring testament to the author’s formative, tragically foreshortened, relationship with a dear college buddy.

This phenomenal debut novel, written by visionary American author and poet, Ms Leila Mottley, at just 19, electrified the literary web back in summer. Its premise, of a disenfranchised, young Black woman, sexually exploited by the police, who fears further dehumanisation by wider society if she dares to risk bid for legal justice, is, depressingly, based upon a true story. But for all the unflinching depiction of what it takes to scrape an almost-living, while caring for others, in today’s Oakland, Nightcrawling shines through with the vivacity – the tenacious, embodied alive-ness – that illuminates her protagonist.

The latest novel from Ms Celeste Ng, the much-adored author of Little Fires Everywhere, which is staged in a darker, authoritarian near-future US – yes, a belter of a trend – draws readers into 12-year-old Bird’s quest to find his mother. For in Ng’s eerie dystopia, Asian Americans such as Bird, and his radical poet-in-hiding mother, are reviled by both state and many citizens for causing “The Crisis” that tanked the country. Disquieting, yes. But also a lyrical and humane novel with masses of heart.

As we’re all aware, effective altruism, Oxford philosopher Dr William McAskill’s key philanthropic theory, is under serious scrutiny due to the outrageous fraud committed by its now-notorious figurehead, FTX founder Mr Sam Bankman-Fried. But before chucking the utilitarian baby out with the criminal-crypto bathwater, it pays real dividends to ponder the universal and pressing quandary, of what it means to live ethically alongside the ingenious.

Any new tome by Booker winner Mr George Saunders – the foremost storyteller of our time, according to, er, Time – is worthy of close attention. This nine-strong collection of short stories, which unfurl across a less-democratic US, proves a vital and engaging addition to the “how the hell did January 6 happen?” canon.

As Saunders’ recently wrote: “the short story is about change”, and stories themselves also invite us to change our own default views as we open ourselves up to other experiences. Just how closely we attend to, consider and reconsider his Liberation Day characters, their views and tribulations, and those of similarly manipulated, coerced and brain-washed humans we dwell amid – including, perhaps, ourselves – is left to us to untangle.