Killing Commendatore – Haruki Murakami

Everybody knows that governments engage in activities that are top secret and not always carried out by-the-book. They are knows as 'black ops'. But perhaps less well known is that there is a level beyond this, when the very existence of the state is threatened and the situation needs fixing instantly and utterly secretly and probably violently. Sometimes, it's necessary to go 'full black'. And when the USA is in that position, the man most likely to lead the mission is former Navy SEAL Scot Harvath. FULL BLACK finds Harvath in Sweden, executing in an audacious plan to prevent a massive attack on the Unites States by leading a team to capture a suspected terrorist and infiltrate his cell with a double agent. At the same time, Larry Solomon, one of the most famous film producers in Hollywood, is attacked in his home by a special forces-style group of assassins and only escapes with the help of his friend and former Delta Force operative Luke Ralston. In making a documentary film, Solomon has unknowingly exposed one of the world's wealthiest and highly connected power-brokers as a man determined to plunge the West into deadly chaos. Now, both Solomon and Ralston are living on borrowed time. As the plots rocket to their pulse-pounding conclusions, Harvath will be left with only one means to save his country. Unable to trust anyone, he will be forced to go FULL BLACK.

Four friends get together to watch the 1998 World Cup final. One of them has an let's write down our wishes for the next few years, put them away, and during the next final - four years from now - we'll get them out and see how many we've achieved. This is how World Cup Wishes opens, and from here we watch what happens to their wishes and their friendships as life marches on. The four men's bond is deep and solid, but tested by betrayal, death,and distance their alliance comes under pressure. Each friend offers a different perspective, though not necessarily a reliable one... and as they and the world around them change, so do their ideas of friendship and happiness. By the end they are forced to ask whether wishes can really be fulfilled. Or will their story turn out to be a requiem - for a generation, for friendship, or even for one of the four young men? Once again, Eshkol Nevo has produced a novel suffused with charm, warmth and an astonishing wisdom.

To avoid fainting keep repeating, It's only a move ..only a movie ..only a movie ..only a movie If you grew up believing that Planet of the Apes told you all you needed to know about politics, that Slade in Flame was a savage exposé of the pop world, and that The Exorcist revealed the meaning of life, then you probably spent far too many of your formative years at the cinema. Just as likely, you soon realised that there was only one career open to you - you'd have to become a film critic. In It's Only a Movie, the incomparable Mark Kermode takes us into the weird world of a life lived in widescreen. Join him as he embarks on a gut-wrenching journey through the former Soviet Union on the trail of the low-budget horror flick Dark Waters, cringe as he's handbagged by Helen Mirren at the BAFTA awards ceremony, cheer as he gets thrown out of the Cannes Film Festival for heckling in very bad French, and don't forget to gasp as he's shot at while interviewing Werner Herzog in the Hollywood Hills. Written with sardonic wit and wry good humour, this compelling cinematic memoir is genuinely 'inspired by real events'.

The suddenness and depth of the recession has raised questions about the workability of capitalism not seen since the 1930s. One of the constraints on recovery is the growing belief that if the old model did not work there is no new one on offer. This book sets out to provide one, arguing that reconstructing a bust financial system is not just a technical question. It cannot be done without a wholescale revision of the wider system and values on which it is based. And fairness must be placed at the heart of the new capitalism for society's future wellbeing. Will Hutton's new book musters brilliant, convincing arguments which will lend favour on both right and left. It is set to be a book which captures the mood of the moment in the same way that THE STATE WE'RE IN did.