What we’re reading: Ian Rankin, Louise Kennedy and Guardian readers on the books they enjoyed in October

Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

I’m a huge fan of Muriel Spark, but wasn’t sure I needed another biography of her, yet James Bailey’s Like a Cat Loves a Bird was a winning blend of detail and readability.

A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford is a prize-winning debut crime novel set in 1970s Glasgow. It’s clever, authentic and humane with unforgettable protagonists and pitch-black humour.

The Heights by Ian Rankin is published by Orion (£25). To support the Guardian order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

I’ve loved (most of) China Miéville’s books (I think that he and Alan Moore are the real doyens of “weird” fiction) – but The Rouse is surely his opus: sometimes prose-poetry, sometimes stream-of-consciousness, with shades (literally) of Lovecraft and MR James running through a bleak, unsettling yet compelling tale. I strongly suggest you take a very deep breath and launch into an adventure (lasting more than 1,200 pages) that will leave you dazed and amazed!

I normally read one book at a time but, perhaps because I am on the road at the moment, I have three on the go. Emma Cline’s short story Arcadia almost killed me, and I’ve been a devotee ever since. Switzy, her new novel, accompanies on his final journey a man whose wealth and privilege offer no protection from the dementia that has begun to addle his poor brain. Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth: so far, charming, pretty Lily Bart is in charge of her story, but an encounter with a man who appears not to wish her well suggests there may be trouble ahead. John McGahern’s Memoir already has my heart rent in twain, to paraphrase an old Irish ballad, and he hasn’t even finished primary school.

Stations by Louise Kennedy is published by Bloomsbury (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is a beautiful and heartbreaking love story that transported me back in time to Paris in the late 1970s and 80s. The main characters, Laure and Erica, as well as the other characters, soon feel like friends – friends who are human and imperfect, and who sometimes make frustrating decisions, but who are all the more lovable for it. It’s elegantly and smartly written, and paints such vivid pictures – I rarely read past my bedtime these days, but I stayed up late for this one, torn between wanting to finish and never wanting the book to end. It captures the feeling of love and being in love so well.

This year, I’ve set myself the challenge of only reading books by writers who aren’t part of the Anglosphere, with each writer being from a different country. It’s certainly forced me to read stuff outside my comfort zone – which is how, this month, I’ve ended up reading Independent People by Halldór Laxness, a 500+ page novel about an Icelandic farming family. Over the course of about 20 years in the early 20th century, we follow the hardships and privations of a stubborn farmer who insists he fend for himself to maintain independence on his own land.

I expected this book to be unrelentingly grim reading – and in parts it is, especially in the almost indifference to death. But it’s also very humorous in its characters’ cynicism towards one another. It’s beautifully atmospheric in its prose, particularly the changing of the seasons and their effect on the dramatic landscape of the farm. Reading so much literature in translation has given me an appreciation of when it’s done well (without ever knowing the original text), and the translation by JA Thompson, in collaboration with Laxness, is sublime.