BOOKS
Sister acts
From the Isle of Wight to Berlin, from 1960s New York to Ireland's West Coast, this month's fiction is brimful of strong female characters by ROSE SHEPHERD
PICK OFTHE MONTH
I LAUGH ME BROKEN Bridget van der Ziipp
Burdened with the revelation that she may carry a faulty gene that will wreck her life, Ginny leaves her devoted fiance in New Zealand and heads for Berlin, to research a book, lose herself in hedonistic nightlife, and make a decision - to test, or not to test. A beautifully written novel, keenly observed, with a vivid cast o f characters. /ch loch mich kaputt. I'm cracking up laughing - and falling apart with the pain o f it.