Tim Winton (Picador)
The latest novel by Tim Winton (twice shortlisted for the Booker prize) is Juice, and it begins in a deceptively familiar, even clichéd fashion. A man and a young girl in a futuristic, pimped-up vehicle are crossing a post-apocalyptic Australian outback. Even in the real world, the outback holds many dangers for the unprepared. Winton’s fictional, far-future outback is so hot and ruined that it is barely survivable even for the extremely experienced and well-prepared man at the wheel. And the girl…