A novel and an album

The "perfectly good man" in the title of Patrick Gale's latest novel is Barnaby Thomas, the priest of a rural parish in Gale's native Cornwall. Salley Vickers writes that through the novel we follow Thomas' 'life, spiritual and psychological, from his own perspective but also from that of the various characters who are germane to that life.' Julie Myerson suggests that:

'Gale's dog-collared protagonist is far more complex – and sinful – than we originally suspect. And, far from being a dull cipher, he is also that rare thing – a fictional character so charismatically ambiguous, so physically, spiritually and emotionally alive, that you feel you could reach out and ruffle his hair. Forget what they say about the Devil. There's a pretty good tune being tapped out here in these Anglican pages.'

Vickers concludes that the 'strength of this novel lies in its capacity to convey ordinariness authentically: ordinary love, ordinary failure, ordinary belief, ordinary, everyday tragedy, which of course in its particular manifestation is never "ordinary".'

'Michael Kiwanuka is the BBC Sound of 2012 winner ... Kiwanuka's soul had a new rootsy-folk direction, drawing influences from John Martyn alongside Pop Staples and Bill Withers and it wasn't long before his unique voice had attracted the attention of Paul Butler from the Bees, who took him to the Isle of Wight to work on EP Tell Me The Tale. Soon Communion Records had signed the 24 year-old up and Adele had invited the Londoner on her landmark 2011 tour.'

Alexis Petridis writes that:

'If such a thing as a racing certainty still exists in these turbulent times for rock and pop, then Michael Kiwanuka's debut album may well be it. It's always unwise to make predictions about these things, but there's no getting around the fact that the 24-year-old's music ticks a lot of boxes on the list headed Things People Seem to Like These Days ...

Those old enough to remember an era when British rock music, like the Blair administration, didn't really do God might raise an eyebrow at how much of Home Again seems to deal with Christianity. Kiwanuka addresses The Lord with such frequency that you picture Him hiding behind the sofa and pretending to be out. At first, it just sounds like a lyrical tic, but by the time you reach I'm Getting Ready – "to believe" – it's pretty clear that it runs substantially deeper than that.

There was a time when an album so explicitly God-bothering might have risked turning mainstream UK buyers off, although Kiwanuka might reasonably point out that most of the music that inspired him was exactly the same. Perhaps more pertinently, you could add that Mumford and Sons' links to evangelical Christianity and "awake my soul, you were made to meet your maker" lyrics have done nothing to harm their popularity in the UK and may well have contributed to it in the US: there are certainly a lot of American bloggers excited by the band's ability to provide "moments of worship" in their music. Back home, top of the list of Things People Seem to Like These Days is a certain earnestness and sincerity in their music: Home Again ticks that box as well.'

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Michael Kiwanuka - I'm Getting Ready.