What we’re reading: Ian Rankin, Louise Kennedy and Guardian readers on the books they enjoyed in October

Key points

• Ian Rankin, Louise Kennedy and Guardian readers shared the books they enjoyed in October.
• James Bailey's biography Like a Cat Loves a Bird was praised as a winning blend of detail and readability.
• Frances Crawford's A Bad, Bad Place is a prize-winning debut crime novel set in 1970s Glasgow.

Ian Rankin, Louise Kennedy and Guardian readers have discussed the books they read and enjoyed in October, inviting readers to join the conversation in the comments.

Among the titles highlighted were James Bailey's biography of Muriel Spark, Like a Cat Loves a Bird, described as a winning blend of detail and readability, and Frances Crawford's prize-winning debut crime novel A Bad, Bad Place, set in 1970s Glasgow.

Crime and weird fiction picks

A Bad, Bad Place was called clever, authentic and humane, with unforgettable protagonists and pitch-black humour. Ian Rankin's The Heights, published by Orion at £25, was also mentioned.

China Mieville's The Rouse was described as surely his opus, mixing prose-poetry and stream-of-consciousness with shades of Lovecraft and MR James across more than 1,200 pages.

It’s clever, authentic and humane with unforgettable protagonists and pitch-black humour.

— Guardian reader

Readers on their October reading

One reader, on the road, had three books going: Emma Cline's Switzy, Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth and John McGahern's Memoir. Another praised Kiran Millwood Hargrave's Almost Life, a love story set in Paris in the late 1970s and 80s.

A reader limiting themselves to writers outside the Anglosphere read Halldor Laxness's Independent People, a novel of more than 500 pages about an Icelandic farming family over about 20 years in the early 20th century.