If you haven't come across Ann Patchett before, I strongly recommend you read her earlier novel, Bel Canto, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2002 and is many people's all-time favourite book. Patchett is a North American in her forties who lives in Tennessee with a medical husband. She was included in this year's Time magazine's 100 most infl uential people who inspire, entertain, challenge and change our world. One of her claims to fame recently has been to buck the trend of the big multinational booksellers and Amazon by opening a small independent bricks-and-mortar bookstore in her hometown of Nashville. She comes across as a determined woman and a strong moral code pervades throughout her novels. Her characters usually take bold, unexpected actions that often shift the paradigms of power.

State of Wonder evolves around a group of doctors working for a small US pharmaceutical company in Minnesota who …