Kevin Goetz
Bar press, £18.99, pp240

“I’d rather be beaten in the face with a donkey penis than watch this movie!” Test screenings of new films are Hollywood’s method of turning cinematic lead into lucrative gold. Focus group leader Kevin Goetz’s highly readable, albeit self-enhancing, account of the process reveals just how hit and miss it can be. For every film saved by last-minute intervention, there are others marred by unnecessary comment from “ordinary” audiences, but Goetz mixes insightful anecdotes with potentially inspiring stories that provide insight into an industry’s desperation. of several billion dollars.

Louise Erdrich
Privateer, £20, pp400

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist returns with a new book that takes ironic delight in upending reader expectations. At first, it appears to be a comedy novel revolving around hapless ex-con Tookie, before morphing into an original ghost story set in a bookstore. But then Erdrich expands and deepens the narrative to encompass everything from the murder of George Floyd to the socially destructive effects of Covid. It may be overambitious, but it’s a fascinating and unorthodox exercise in metaphysical fiction.

Anthony Quinn
Abacus, £8.99, pp344 (paperback)

Anthony Quinn’s impressive latest novel elegantly depicts a city and an era – the London of the late 1970s – on the brink of seismic change. An impresario named Freddie Selves (a thinly disguised Peter Hall) is about to launch the National Music Hall; a reporter pursues a barely believable story; a Northern Irish academic finds himself the victim of mistaken identity; and a policewoman learns that her colleagues might be corrupt. Somehow, their fates will all be intertwined in a book full of suspense and ironic social commentary.