An affecting novel about youth lost in society's cracks. There is an aching sense of a young life on a hill start: revving to go forwards, but slipping backwards because she doesn't know how. People arrive without backstories and disappear into unseen futures. Her world is one of dangerous vulnerability and few escape routes.

Lela is an 18-year-old long-term resident and surrogate older sister to the younger children, who is left to feel her way, alone, into burgeoning womanhood.

The Pear Field Nana Ekvtimishvili, translated by Elizabeth Heighway Peirene Press, £12 The Georgian writer and film-maker 's novel is set in a Residential School for Intellectually Disabled Children – or as the locals dub it, 'the School for Idiots' – in the grim suburbs of Tbilisi. An inventive collection that rewards the curious reader. There is some interesting counterfactual speculation, for example about what might have happened had the Japanese response to the Potsdam Declaration been translated differently, but equally persuasive are the more invisible instances from asylum seeker court cases. As such, it is less about pushing a central thesis than conveying the high-stakes, real-world relevance of the subject. It jumps back and forth through the centuries and ranges from the satirical to the deadly serious. Ruth McKeeĭancing on Ropes Anna Aslanyan Profile Books, £16.99 This is a history of the delicate but often influential role played by translators and interpreters, including at the Nuremberg trials and in the translation of the Bible by St Jerome and Google. The book explores concepts of faith, meaning, and technology, poking fun at the high altar of big tech while examining Asha's private and professional struggles: breezy and bright. Things take off fast for them both – but one of them will be increasingly side-lined in the boardroom. With Asha newly married to Cyrus, he lends his unique and astonishing gifts to the project.

The shiny people at Utopia, the startup incubator, like the idea of WAI (We Are Infinite), thinking it could be useful in the post-apocalyptic world. The Startup Wife Tahmima Anam Canongate, £14.99 'If only you could give every skeptic what they wanted, some kind of believable replacement for God.' Computer scientist Asha has worked on an algorithm that will do just this: a social media app that feeds on people's personalities to create meaningful rituals in the place of religion.

Bear by marian engel summary