Both memoir and bibliotherapy for troubled minds, The Place of Tides by James Rebanks takes a step out of time and place, transporting us to a remote Norwegian island just south of the Arctic Circle. Here, burnt out and disillusioned with life, Rebanks spends a restorative ‘eiderdown season’ with a marvellous woman named Anna. Upholding an ancient island tradition, Anna nurtures wild eider ducks as they nest and lay eggs, collecting the precious down they leave behind to make duvets. The days are still, the work simple and repetitive, a balm for Rebanks’ spirits as he uncovers the story of Anna’s long island life and learns some valuable lessons.

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Tom Crowley probably wouldn’t describe himself as a careerist but he certainly puts in the hours. His workplace is the (literally) rapidly expanding Capmeadow Business Park, where his job description somewhat vaguely encompasses office briefs and content strategy. He’s also a husband and father, and suspects he’s inadequate at both. In The Expansion Project by Ben Pester, we enter a Kafkaesque horror story, beginning the day that Tom takes his 8-year-old daughter, Hen, into Capmeadow and loses her (or believes he does) in its labyrinthine interiors. In a surreal 21st century corporate dystopia, Tom’s work-life balance goes seriously and sinisterly awry.

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