The best novel I read this year was Rawi Hage's COCKROACH (Hamish Hamilton), which tells the story of an ungrateful immigrant, filled with angst and attitude, in a Montreal which could be Kafka's Prague. It is a dark book, narrated with verve and brilliance. It made me jump for joy. Any writer who borrows a piece of a Capote book title is asking for it, but Daniyal Mueenuddin's IN OTHER ROOMS, OTHER WONDERS, set in worlds of rich and poor, east and west, has such razor sharpness and lyric tenderness that it gets away with it. Anyone writing "you only had to see her disjoint a chicken to know the depths and heights of her carnality" gets my vote.