For obvious reasons the only novels that made sense to me this year were novels by Palestinian writers like Adania Shibli, Selma Dabbagh and Isabella Hammad. Ibtisam Azem is another writer I’m adding to this list as her novel The Book of Disappearance (su…

Nina Nesbitt’s fourth album is her best yet, and one of my favourites of the year. It’s a beautiful folk-pop record, with gentle acoustic guitar and piano melodies and light, airy vocals that evoke the ethereal mountain scene on its cover. Inspired by her…

Huge melodies simply teem out of this Teesside fella and on his new album he’s packing plenty. His sophisticated pop songs have a gorgeous 80s vibe (I’m talking the sumptuous end of the 80s – Black, The Kane Gang, Everything But The Girl) and on his lates…