Gone Girl's gone, hello Eleanor Oliphant: why we're all reading 'up lit' | Books | The Guardian

Last week, Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine was longlisted for the Women's prize for fiction. The debut author, who has gone from writing competition to publishing bidding war to the Costa first novel prize, joins Joanna Cannon, with her second novel Three Things About Elsie. What's more surprising than two relative newcomers sitting alongside heavyweights including Arundhati Roy and Nicola Barker is that these novels are decidedly upbeat accounts of the kindness of strangers.