Paperbacks: our picks of the latest releases

Our pick of the latest releases

Necropolis

Santiago Gamboa, translated Howard Curtis

Europa Editions, £12.99

In this novel the Colombian writer Santiago Gamboa takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride, criss-crossing from the Americas to Italy to Israel and pulling the reader along at such a pace that there is hardly time to draw breath. In the company of a lesser writer the reader could experience literary vertigo, but Gamboa manages to introduce his parade of characters – some of dubious reputation and some of overweening ones – safely through the ruse of an international conference in Jerusalem. With no little black humour, it is a murder committed in a city at war that provides a focal point for Gamboa's eclectic mix of writers, evangelists, porn stars and journalists. It is testament to Gamboa's ability as a storyteller that they mix together very believably in a work that is by turns tender, farcical, explicit, bombastic and never less than engrossing. Pól Ó Muirí

It’s Not Rocket Science

Ben Miller

Sphere, £12.99

Ben Miller: actor, comedian, approximately half of Armstrong and Miller, and not quite finished his PhD yet. He's here to highlight some of the simple ideas behind spectacular science that might be niggling you, such as whether the Large Hadron Collider can cause a black hole. (The answer is no.) Delving into the nitty-gritty of global warming, evolution, quarks and the importance of sash windows in understanding convection, this is a wonderful handbook for the curious. Miller states from the beginning that you're not expected to understand everything, but it's surprising what you can learn when you hang in there. And it's so entertainingly written that the learning doesn't hurt at all. Full of anecdotes, scientific research and tributes to inspirational teachers, this passing on of knowledge could be the best bit of edutainment you will read this year. Claire Looby

The Uncommon Reader

Alan Bennett

Faber and Faber, £7.99

If you think Queen Elizabeth parachuting her way out of a helicopter for the Olympics demanded an impossible suspension of disbelief, then you should check out the opening scene in Alan Bennett's reprinted 2006 comic beauty. Her majesty, hosting a state banquet at Windsor Castle, solicits the opinion of the president of France on the writer Jean Genet. "Homosexual and jailbird," she inquires in impeccable French syntax, "was he nevertheless as bad as he was painted? Or, more to the point, was he as good?" The queen's bibliomania, we soon learn, has been triggered by a chance encounter with a mobile public library in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Before long, everyone is being driven demented by her obsession, from courtiers to unwashed muggles. A one-gag story padded out to the length of a novella, but with a gag this rich we cannot but be royally amused. Daragh Downes

Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil

Jerome Charyn

Yale University Press, £10.99

Joe DiMaggio is remembered primarily as an old ballplayer who was the brief second husband of Marilyn Monroe. But fans of the Great American Pastime revere Joltin’ Joe as one of the greats, for 15 years the New York Yankees’ star centrefielder, who in 1937 alone walloped in 46 home runs. DiMaggio and Monroe dated for two years to national acclaim, his incredible celebrity helping the rising starlet through a career crisis. Though their nine-month marriage was a combustible disaster, Charyn persuasively argues that Monroe was the love of DiMaggio’s life until her death. The Jolter gets his due as an athlete, though his dark side is also grimly examined. Off the field he was a sour, stingy, bottled-up man who associated (discreetly) with gamblers and lowlifes. In later years DiMaggio pitched Mr Coffee coffeemakers as relentlessly as he hawked his autograph. This highly readable short book, really an extended essay, puts the life and career of a sporting icon in context. Kevin Sweeney