George Saunders Vigil 192pp. Bloomsbury. £18.99. Four years after publishing Lincoln in the Bardo (TLS, March 10, 2017), George Saunders hinted that he was drawn to writing a longer second novel, capt

Island life. And death...

Regrets and revelations

Lizzie Wade Apocalypse How catastrophe transformed our world and can forge new futures 320pp. William Collins. £20. Luke Kemp Goliath’s Curse The history and future of societal collapse 592pp. Viking.

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John Blair Killing the Dead Vampire epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World 536pp. Princeton University Press. £30 (US $35). A dead body, as anyone who has sat with one will know, is an unsettling