Tinkers
Paul Harding
Windmill, £7.99
There are novels that beguile from the opening sentence. Paul Harding's beautifully wistful Pulitzer Prize-winning debut does precisely that in a rare prose poem of laconic grace and philosophical practicality. Possessed of a subtle insistence, it is an astute performance, wise and thoughtful, poised between the conversational and the formal. An old man lies dying, in a bed that has been moved into the living room of the house he had built. Once he had repaired clocks; now he is a prisoner of vivid hallucinations. There are shades of Beckett's Malone Dies, yet Harding is an original, an American pastoralist. Re-creating a life lived through a series of flashbacks, he explores the possibilities of narrative through his use of time shifts, word play, lyrical imagery, memories and changing viewpoints. There is something strange and wonderful, beyond the conventional, at work, sustaining this Chagall-like vision of one man's odyssey towards death and into the mystery of life and living. Eileen Battersby
True Grit
Charles Portis
Bloomsbury
Before John Wayne – and long before the Coen brothers – there was Charles Portis's short novel, a best-seller in 1968 but a Western that has long since been overshadowed by the movie adaptation. Yet in 14-year-old Mattie Ross, setting out to avenge the death of her father at the hands of drunken hired hand Tom Chaney, Portis created a lasting character: deeply self-assured, humourless, driven and infuriating to any adult who encounters her. And Rooster Cogburn, the one-eyed marshal she hires, is a flawed giant – stinking of gunsmoke, blood and alcohol but also packing an unsentimental wit. Joined in their hunt by a Texas Ranger, LeBeouf, they go on a chase that is taut and inevitably bloody. From its grabbing opening line onwards, the tight plot moves along at a clip, in a vivid, brilliant novel that deserves to be a classic as much as the original film does. Shane Hegarty
Voices from the Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland
Ed Moloney
Faber and Faber, £9.99
Ed Moloney's compelling account of republican Brendan Hughes and loyalist David Ervine sheds personal, depressing light on the Northern Ireland conflict. Based on interviews conducted as part of Boston College's IRA/UVF oral-history project, the book vividly re-creates Hughes's and Ervine's respective trajectories into and beyond paramilitary violence. As so often in the North, the stories from the two communities are asymmetrical. Here Ervine moves bravely to embrace peace process politics while former hunger striker Hughes becomes disenchanted with that political compromise and, in particular, with the role played in it by his former comrade Gerry Adams. Hughes acknowledges that only Adams could have led the republican movement from war to peace, and condemns him for the manner of his doing so. The book could have offered more in the way of interrogative challenge to Hughes's and Ervine's often dubious assertions. But it remains a powerful, highly readable, very illuminating account. Richard English
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot
Pan, £7.99
Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman from Virginia, died in 1951 from cervical cancer. Before she died a surgeon took samples of her tumour and cultured them without her permission. For decades scientists had been trying to keep human cells alive in culture but had failed. Henrietta's survived, however, and produced very rapidly. "They became the first immortal human cells ever grown in a laboratory." Henrietta would be shocked to learn that there are trillions more of her cells growing in labs today than there ever were in her body. They were part of research into the genes that cause cancer and those that suppress it, and they helped scientists to develop drugs to treat many diseases. Her family learned, only 25 years after her death, that some of their mother's cells were still living. Skloot presents the "real live woman", her children and the issues of race, poverty and science involved in one of the most important medical discoveries of the past 100 years. She tells the story clearly, fairly and with compassion and grace. Brian Maye
The Man in the Wooden Hat: A Novel
Jane Gardam
Abacus £7.99
Old Filth, Jane Gardam's Orange Prize-shortlisted novel, told the story of Sir Edward Feathers QC, aka Filth (Failed in London, Try Hong Kong), his colonial upbringing and scarring experiences as a Raj orphan. This companion novel picks up the story from the perspective of Filth's wife, Betty, also an orphan. Although Betty loves Filth for his formality and security, she is helplessly attracted to his legal rival Veneering. This typically English tale of a love triangle is kept untypical by Gardam's unique portrayal of her characters and refreshing execution. It is not necessary to have read Old Filth to enjoy this one. Gardam maintains her painterly eye in this honed portrait of love and loss. Full of underplayed wit and emotional restraint, The Man in the Wooden Hat is an absorbing read that will keep you guessing until the last page. Adam Wyeth
