A roundup of recently published fiction. For more information on these books or for details of other recent titles, including new poetry, biography and travel books, please visit the British Council online book club at www.encompassculture.com

A new Martin Amis is always likely to cause a stir, and his latest novel Yellow Dog is no exception. Yellow Dog was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, to the distress of his detractors, but not shortlisted, to the disappointment of his fans. The Guardian said: 'Like all great writers, he seems to have guessed what you thought about the world, and then expressed it far better than you ever could'. Others, such as Liz Jensen in the Independent, were rather more damning of the novel, a broad satire on British society with characters including a porn tycoon, the future queen of England and her father Henry IX: 'Lazily conceived and apparently inspired only by a manic desire to write Great Sentences, Yellow Dog is a book which fails to deliver anything other than a few lethargic half-swipes at some well-worn and deflated Aunt Sallys'.

Another book longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and seriously expected to storm onto the shortlist at least, was Mark Haddon's wonderfully titled The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. The novel, an affecting tale of domestic discord told from the point of view of an autistic teenager, didn't make the shortlist after all, but as one of those rare treasures which crosses the boundary between adult and children's fiction, it secured the Guardian Children's Book Award. Julia Eccleshare, chair of the judging panel, said it was 'engaging, original, and life-changing' and Charlotte Moore reviewing the book in the Guardian, simply said 'I think it's brilliant'. However, it was the very deserving Australian author D. B. C. Pierre who won the prize with his original, quirky and perceptive first novel, Vernon God Little.

The matriarchs of British crime fiction, P. D. James and Ruth Rendell, are still flexing their literary muscles and entertaining their loyal followers. In The Murder Room, James's melancholy hero Adam Dalgliesh is brought in to solve a grisly murder in a museum. In The Rottweiler Rendell's regular detective, Wexford, is at the centre of a murder case which forces him to question his own assumptions about life and how we lead it. The Guardian says of Rendell's latest: 'She successfully scatters her clues, flatters the intelligence and adds the frisson of the occasional deviant twist: female paedophilia, pot-smoking grannies'. Meanwhile Ian Rankin's laconic detective Rebus is still hard at work back on the mean streets of Edinburgh. In the Guardian Mark Lawson says of Rankin: 'There have been 14 novels, a novella and short stories about John Rebus, his Edinburgh cop, and yet he remains a rare example of a best-selling author whose increasing financial advances are matched by artistic ones'.

Graham Swift and Pat Barker have both published novels which could loosely be described as literary thrillers. Swift's first novel since his Booker-winning The Light of Day is a sparse and haunting account of a private detective's obsession with his client's crime. In Double Vision, Barker moves away from the First World War setting of her Regeneration trilogy to face the horrors of the war in Afghanistan, murder on the streets of Sarajevo and the long-term effects that war and disaster can have on the mind of a journalist.

It's interesting to note that the phenomena of 'chick lit' and its male equivalent the 'lager saga' were not such flashes in the pan after all. Many of the main proponents are still outlining the trials and tribulations of being, young(ish), single (usually), flirty, sometimes desperate, regularly drunk, loveable, chaotic and customarily facing personal crises. Lisa Jewell is always strong on contemporary London life and A Friend of the Family continues with this theme as seen through the eyes of three brothers and their extended family. Anna Maxted is not a writer scared of difficult issues (previous novels have examined bereavement and eating disorders) and her latest book Behaving Like Adults tackles date rape. 'Maxted deploys her razor-sharp human observation ... moving without being sentimental, riotously comic without being superficial', said the Daily Express. Herding Cats by John McCabe is a fast-paced and witty take on relationships and advertising, which in the end says something quite meaningful about both. The hazards of modern parenting, cultural issues around globalisation and the frailty of the modern man are all key themes in Tony Parsons' Man and Wife, the follow-up to the hugely successful Man and Boy.

Granta's Best of Young British Novelists promotion caused a lot of discussion, some anxiety and brought some intriguing writers to the public eye. Dan Rhodes' first novel Timolean Vieta Come Home: A Sentimental Journey was described by the Observer as one of 'five best debuts for 2003' and the Times described it as 'very funny and very sharp with crushingly wicked moments'. It is an original, macabre and darkly humorous account of an eccentric individual and the difficult choices he has to make. Adam Thirlwell made it on to the list before his first novel had even been published. But Politics has justified its inclusion on the list and is a stunning comedy of sexual relationships, family ties and being Jewish. The Independent said of Thirlwell: 'Politics has a flexibility and muscle that elevates him above most debut novelists...It deserves your immediate attention'. The Sunday Telegraph said of Susan Elderkin's most recent novel The Voices: 'The writing style is energetic and zappy ... original, cleverly imagined' and the Independent commented: 'Dazzling ... For sheer narrative invention she is without an equal'. The novel is a haunting lament to the vanishing Aboriginal culture in Australia, and a love story that crosses boundaries and traditions.

And finally, autumn (well, the British autumn at least) usually sees the publication of a few literary heavyweights, just in time to weigh down those Christmas stockings. Neil Astley, editor of the major poetry publisher Bloodaxe, has added another string to his bow with the publication of his first novel, The End of My Tether. The Independent on Sunday called it: 'A work of daunting ambition and massive imagination. Often bizarre, gleefully irreverent, grotesque or delightful', and it is indeed a unique and original take on the detective novel. The New York Times has called Caryl Phillips 'one of the best and most productive writers of his generation'. His latest novel A Distant Shore is a mesmerising account of a changing rural England and the isolated people who find themselves living there. Amit Chaudhuri confirms his reputation as a master storyteller and mixes up a collection of short stories with a moving memoir in Real Time. Jill Dawson sets her new novel, Wild Boy, in post-revolutionary France and fictionalises the myth of an abandoned autistic boy and those who try to help him. The Independent said of Dawson: 'She is a good instance of a writer reverting to a myth for the better understanding of a present trouble'. Amanda Craig updates Shakespeare's romantic comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream in Love in Idleness, setting her novel in a villa near Cortona, in Italy. It is a delicate comedy of manners but still contains the biting wit that Craig displayed in her earlier novel, A Vicious Circle.