Event of the week

Youth and sex alert! Adam Thirlwell has managed the double whammy of getting on to the Granta Best Of list on the basis of an unpublished extract from his first novel, and he's barely out of nappies.

The unpromisingly titled Politics, packaged in an arty cream cover with brutal orange and black graphics, has also got everyone steamed up because it's got lots of sex in it.

Disguised as a comic tale of morals, Politics manages to cover bondage, lesbian sex and some extreme sexual practices between the three protaganists. Is it sexy? No, definitely not, it's excruciatingly, toe-curlingly unsexy, as no one seems to enjoy themselves, being too self-conscious, too jealous, too embarrassed.

Ben Rice is another Granta child, whose pint-sized novel Pobby And Dingan won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2001. Understandably. It's a beautifully written and involving story, narrated by the son of an unsuccessful opal miner in New South Wales. His sister Kellyanne has two imaginary friends, Pobby and Dingan, who get lost one day, with tragic consequences for everyone. Adam Thirlwell and Ben Rice read from their books.