Bob’s recent reinvention via the … Gone Fishing series means a whole new audience might indeed be surprised at how many different things he’s done and will particularly admire the non-showbiz route to stardom in our age of driven but ultimately vacuous and content-free superstars.’ Plot A fiftysomething woman is devastated when her partner is diagnosed with dementia and his children turf her out of the home they shared. Her partner was insistent that the house should never be sold. But why? Graham Norton, now an established author in addition to his TV and radio career, finds out. Bob Mortimer is pretty much established as a national treasure…So it's great to hear his story of how he got there first-hand…In the end he has become loved for being himself. And maybe that's the best type of success of all.’ Bob was born in 1959 in Middlesbrough, the youngest of four boys. His father died in a car crash when he was seven and Bob says he became his mother’s little helper – although he also set fire to their house after playing with fireworks. As a teenager he dreamed of a career as a footballer, but he ended up studying law at university, and worked as a solicitor in south London.

Previous works Two other Thursday Murder Club books, Richard Osman’s House of Games, A Pointless History of the World, The World Cup of Everything: Bringing the Fun Home.

Main character The story is told from the perspective of all four characters, although the main one is Grace, a woman approaching her 90th birthday with the same energy that most approach their 30th. We meet her on a beach, snapping at a patronising do-gooder, and things progress from there. Plot Gary, a down-at-heel London solicitor, goes for a drink with a friend. The next day, the friend goes missing. Meanwhile, Gary meets and falls for a mysterious woman. Could the two be connected? And why does Gary keep having conversations with a slightly belligerent squirrel? The debut novel by comedian Bob Mortimer has the answers. Plot Mia has it all: a husband, a stepson, an important job and a cat. However, she increasingly feels as if she is simply holding it all together to present herself the way society wants. If only she could be more like her cat. This is the fifth novel by presenter Dawn O’Porter. Main character Technically, the Thursday Murder Club are an ensemble – Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim – but the leader is arguably Elizabeth, an ex-spy and primary carer for her husband, who has dementia. Main character Gary, a man with a job that Mortimer used to have, in the same location where Mortimer used to work. He also has the exact same cadence, vocabulary and thought processes as Mortimer, as seen in his long digressions about pies. That said, Gary is described as having a slightly larger nose than Mortimer, so they are definitely different people.

Writing style Love Untold has a plot, but its real joy is in how Jones digs her fingernails into decades of complicated family history. The risk here would be to boil down at least one of the generations to stereotype, but Jones fiercely resists this. These are four complicated, singular women on their own paths and the story comes entirely from watching them rub against each other. It is stridently confident when it comes to hitting you around the head with sentiment until you relent and start crying, too. Jones could write books like this for the rest of her life and they’d all be brilliant. Every woman who owns a cat will want this Dawn O’Porter book. Photograph: Dave M Benett/Getty Images Previous works An autobiography (And Away…) and a Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing tie-in gift book. Who should buy this book? Fans of The Great British Bake Off, especially fans who have just started to notice how wobbly the show has got without her. The Bullet That Missed by Richard OsmanMain character Sally, a woman who gleefully rediscovers her can-do attitude when all the unnecessary peripherals start to fall away. Writing style This is a book about a woman who essentially devolves (or evolves, as it would like us all to think) into an animal, which makes it a slightly less high-minded version of Paula Cocozza’s novel How to Be Human. It rips along at a decent clip and, even though O’Porter now lives in Los Angeles, does a very good job of depicting the empty aspirational scuzz of the London creative scene. In fact, this is where it thrives. The chapters about Mia’s awful workplace are much more compelling than the ones where she stops washing and pretends to be a cat. The book, too, grows more confident in talking about serious subjects as it progresses and it’s the honesty and openness that he allows in Gone Fishing that make And Away…, by the end, an unexpectedly moving read’