Cloud Cuckoo Land Anthony Doerr

Fourth Estate £20

Zigzagging between past, present and future like a misfiring Tardis, this bristles with ambition, as befits a Pulitzer Prize winner, but fatally lacks focus. One minute we’re in medieval Constantinople, the next in contemporary Idaho, then in the distant future. An imaginary novel by the Greek writer Diogenes is meant to knit the different strands together but the book is an elegant mess.