The blockbusters

What to read - and what to avoid. Our essential guide to the page-turners, and the ones to leave in the airport bookstall...

The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown
(Corgi, £6.99)
The good news about this book is that, if you can stomach the terrible prose and the crass delivery of dodgy information about France, art history and secret societies, it is an efficient page-turner. It is really one long chase sequence, running from the discovery of a body in the Louvre, via a shoot-out in London, to a small chapel in Scotland, as goodies and baddies fight it out over possession of the Holy Grail, no less. Not to be recommended to severe Catholics who may not enjoy the wild allegations about the private life and posterity of Jesus Christ, nor to anybody genuinely interested in the art of Leonardo da Vinci. Hokum tailored for the Mid-West. That's Paris, France, you know.

Eleven Minutes
by Paulo Coelho
(HarperCollins, £7.99)
Prime tosh. Currently a bestseller all over Europe, a book you'll find being keenly studied on the beaches of Crete in German (Elf Minuten). It is the story of a sensitive and philosophical Brazilian prostitute called Maria who lives in Geneva. The title refers to the length of time that she reckons sex takes, usually. (She can never have visited Leeds.) Maria finds herself torn between the forces of light, in the form of Swiss artist Ralf, and of darkness, in the form of sinister English sadomasochist Terence. Luckily, she chooses Ralf and enjoys multiple orgasms as a result. "It was Heaven. I was the earth, the mountains, the tigers, the rivers that flowed into the lakes, the lakes that became the sea." Try saying that in one breath next time you're asked how it was for you.

A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
(Black Swan, £8.99)
Having exhausted travel-book subjects, Bryson (below) applies his trademark style - wry, inquisitive, gee-whizzy - to all scientific knowledge, as appreciated by a layman. It's a thoroughly enjoyable ramble through a mass of information, ranging from the great questions of astrophysics to the unfortunate extinction in 1894 of the flightless wren on a small rock between the North and South Islands of New Zealand, thanks to the lighthouse keeper's cat. It's a feel-better read: "If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here - and by 'we' I mean every living thing." Not all of us, surveying our fellow holidaymakers, are able to feel quite so broad-minded, but Bryson shows us the way.

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix
by JK Rowling
(Bloomsbury, £7.99)
Hits the shops in paperback on Saturday. At 768 pages long, it's bigger and blacker, if not better, than the four preceding books. Harry, a moody adolescent, has his first kiss. Spectacular - if not conclusive - showdown with Voldemort. (Seems to have been written with the film in mind.)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
by Mark Haddon
(Vintage, £6.99)
Top dog among English novels of the last year or so. Christopher Boone, 15, lives with his dad and he is very good at counting but no good at all at understanding what other people are feeling. He has a mild version of Asperger's syndrome but, so far from being a medical freakshow, Haddon uses this as a way of writing about the fact we all look away from what we can't deal with. One day Christopher finds a dead dog impaled with a pitchfork on a neighbour's lawn and resolves to investigate the case. What he uncovers is the story of his own family bust-up. Funny, touching, instantly memorable - The Curious Incident ... is a delight and highly recommended to anybody who has not yet discovered it (although more than half a million already have).

Dude, Where's My Country?
by Michael Moore
(Penguin, £7.99)
This scathing, flailing anti-Bush polemic will please all who have already decided he is evil incarnate, while they wait for the movie, Fahrenheit 9/11.