And this year, it's all about fiction, as the Guardian announces those who made the finals of its First Book Award:

· A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li (Fourth Estate) Short stories about modern China

· Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living, Carrie Tiffany (Picador) The 'Better Farming' train touring 1930s Australia

· In the Country of Men, Hisham Matar (Viking) A young boy coming of age in Libya during the late 1970s

· Harbor, Lorraine Adams (Portobello) The lives of illegal Algerian immigrants in America

· Poppy Shakespeare, Clare Allan (Bloomsbury) A satirical take on Britain's mental health system