But Beautiful, by Geoff Dyer (Abacus, £7.99 in UK)

A unique, brilliantly imaginative response to jazz as an art form and the satisfactions, terrors and traps of the jazz life, this is one of the finest pieces of literature ever to come out of that shadowed world. The book's series of vignettes - fact illuminated by creative fiction - function as short story, biography and as a kind of commentary where the criticism is implied as much by tone as insight. Across its vivid pages drift Lester Young and Ben Webster, consumed by loneliness and alcohol, Charlie Mingus raging against the dying of the light - and everything else - Thelonious Monk, stubbornly eccentric and much loved, Bud Powell fighting inner demons, Chet Baker and Art Pepper living for the next fix - all counterpointed by the friendship shared by Duke Ellington and Harry Carney in decades on the road. Immensely affecting and, for any jazz fan, absolutely essential.