Our top book picks this week: Mostafa Salameh’s journey from refugee to climbing Everest

Dreams of a Refugee: From the Middle East to Mount Everest by Mostafa Salameh

Born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents and raised in Jordan, Mostafa Salameh drifted through college but then turned his life around and climbed the world’s tallest mountain. He also spreads the word of tolerant Islam. (Bloomsbury, March 10)

The Serengeti Rules by Sean B Carroll

Our knowledge of how biological systems are regulated, from the body to the plains of Africa, has led to the development of many life-saving medicines. This book argues that it is time to use this knowledge to improve the planet. (Princeton, University Press, February 22)

At The Existentialist Café by Sarah Bakewell

Paris, 1933. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Raymond Aron meet up in a cafe. What happens will inspire a new philosophy that will sweep the world, playing a role in everything from student uprisings to civil rights movements. (Chatto and Windus, March 3)

Trencherman by Eben Venter

Marlouw searches for his nephew Koert in South Africa on the old family farm. But this is now a country of poverty and corruption. And what about the rumours Koert has built himself a mini-empire on the farm? Retelling of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. (Scribe UK,

March 10)

The Living by Anjali Joseph

An elderly man in India who still makes sandals by hand and a woman working in one of the last shoe factories in a UK town. Different people but what connects them? This novel from the Mumbai-born author of Saraswati Park looks at themes of dying industries, everyday life and friendship. (Fourth Estate, March 10)

Stork Mountain by Miroslav Penkov

An American student returns to Bulgaria to track down the grandfather who cut off all contact with the family many years ago. But in the mountains close to the border with Turkey, he finds that old ghosts come back to life. The is the first novel from the celebrated short story writer. (Sceptre, March 10)