When I won eleven brand new paperbacks from MCG I didn’t know what to do because I’d never taken possession of more than six new books in one go before. So, naturally, I pretended I was a Booker Prize judge. And then I put them in an artfully wonky pile and took a photograph of them.

I looked at the titles, read the blurb, fondled the covers, read the review quotes, checked how many chapters they had, read the first lines, fanned the pages, smelt their scent, made a cup of tea and then put them in an artfully wonky pile again. I did all the procrastinating things people who supposedly like reading do before they start reading. And eventually I did start to read one of them. I’ve now read four and here’s what I thought of them.