A Week in December

by Sebastian Faulks

In Brief

Seven days: seven characters. A Premiership footballer, an Islamic radicalist, a venomous book reviewer, an amoral hedge fund manager, a drug-crazed schoolboy, a Tube train driver and a penniless barrister make up the eclectic cast of this critical snapshot of modern London.

Why you should read it

Its themes are bleak: virtualisation, money and detachment from reality. But the doleful messages of impending societal catastrophe are well balanced with satire and farce. And Faulks' characters, however extreme, are all too real.