Johny Pitts talks to Jon McGregor about his latest novel Lean Fall Stand, inspired by a trip to Antarctica. Opening with sparse, barely describable landscape in the midst of a storm, it follows Robert "Doc" Wright's recovery in the aftermath and sensitively examines heroism, modern masculinity and the failure of words.

Chester Himes is an often overlooked favour of his Black American contemporaries Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright and James Baldwin, despite also attempting to carve out a literary career in Paris. With his better-known Harlem detective series being reissued, his biographer Lawrence P. Jackson and crime writer Dreda Say Mitchell discuss his prescient legacy.

And looking ahead to next month, Francesca Main of Phoenix Books chooses a multi-generational story of love, family and Indian history as her Editor's Tip.

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