Solar, by Ian McEwan

Who knew McEwan could be a laugh-out-loud funny satirist? The writing is as accomplished as in his other books, but the tone is completely different – those who loved Atonement may not like this book, or even recognize it as being by the same author. The unsympathetic protagonist, Michael Beard, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in his youth, has grown fat, lazy, and is indifferent to the distress he causes to the many women who are inexplicably drawn to him and the colleagues whose work, and in one case, life, he steals. The subject in global warming and in many ways Beard is the embodiment of how humanity has come to this pass – through greed, indifference to others, and our rather touching, if misplaced, faith that science and human brilliance will get us out of any scrape we get ourselves into. 287 pp.