The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
Penguin, £9.99
"You see a white family, it says: 'They're looking for food'. You see a black family, it says: 'They're looting'." So said US rapper Kanye West of the media portrayal of New Orleans residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which stripped bare the mistrust between America's social classes. This lack of trust is directly proportional to the level of inequality in any society, according to Wilkinson and Pickett in The Spirit Level. The authors make the case that inequality breeds all of society's ills, with our psychological wellbeing dependent upon our perceived standing in relation to others. The lower an individual's social status, the more susceptible he becomes to violence and depression due to growing resentment about his standing in the financial pecking order. But greater equality benefits both rich and poor, and citizens of more equal countries enjoy increased life expectancy. Proselytising a vision for a more egalitarian world, The Spirit Level deserves serious political and academic recognition.
Kevin Cronin
Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths
Robin Waterfield
Faber, £9.99
The events surrounding Socrates’ death have become iconic; his execution has been compared in importance to that of Jesus some four centuries later. He has generally been seen as a martyr, “a good man unjustly killed for his views”. Waterfield undertakes to examine all the evidence “to reach a fuller understanding of Socrates’ trial and execution”. To do this, he skilfully fills in the historical background of fifth-century Athens, especially the city’s crippling and draining war with Sparta. This left Athens exposed to ambitious, ruthless and sometimes unprincipled politicians, particularly the egregious Alcibiades. Waterfield contends that Socrates was condemned mainly because of his association with the ambitious generation of Athenian young men such as Alcibiades. This is a readable and persuasive work.
Brian Maye
Counting Down
Gerard Stembridge. Penguin. £ 6.99
When Joe Power comes across a countdown clock which should have stopped at the dawn of the new millennium but seems, instead, to have the ability to predict the lifespan of whoever inserts new batteries into it, he becomes a man obsessed – especially when his five-year-old son, Milo, is killed, apparently right on cue. As plotlines go, it sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But how about this: thirtysomething Irish person, interested only in material objects, totally selfish, outlandishly vulgar, surrounded by general nastiness and engaged in a losing battle with the waistline of his trousers. Eek! This isn't a serial killer thriller: it's a portrait of us, during the Celtic Tiger years. But is it a comedy or a tragedy? There are some hilarious moments: not least when Power goes into HMV and buys the entire contents of some spurious "best music of all time" list. But for all its conspicuous consumption, Counting Downis haunted by a sense of loss. It's a terrific idea, smartly executed. That's if you can stomach the frequent mechanistic sex, and the constant use of the c-word to dismiss the women characters – which this reader couldn't.
Arminta Wallace
The Immortals
Amit Chaudhuri
Picador, £7.99
Amit Chaudhuri is one of an ever-growing number of internationally-acclaimed Indian authors writing novels that go well beyond Western clichés and generalities about Indian society. The Immortalscentres around the lives of three musicians at varying stages of their artistic and personal development. Through their stories are woven tiny, revealing portraits of Indian life, snapped open and shut like a photo in a locket, while the overwhelming impression is of the great ambition of the characters and their city of Bombay as it grows through the 1980s. Chauduri's own love of traditional Indian songs is palpable in the structure and lilt of his prose, and he captures everyday life as it circles around the music at its core. Closer to home, it's reminiscent of Ciaran Carson's essays on the Irish traditional music scene, but instead of damp raincoats and rashers in the pan, we are enticed into the world of a very different music.
Nora Mahony
The O’Hara Affair
Kate Thompson
Avon, €11.99
Hollywood comes to Lissamore to make a film about fictional heroine Scarlett O’Hara’s ancestry. There is already so much intrigue in the seaside village that the locals are practically tripping over it, but with the film’s star being Shane Byrne, local lad turned international movie star, they’re spoiled for choice. The frivolous story appears to have been savagely attacked by a rampant Thesaurus and is further weighed down by twin albatrosses. The first is boutique owner Fleur’s sudden fascination for Facebook and Second Life and the injurious effects she fears they’re having on a young actress; she discovers that even vigorous “virtual sex” is certainly not worth the effort. The second is ex-super-estate agent Dervla’s forced decision to take on the care of her mother-in-law, who has dementia. These threads are too heavy for the storyline to carry and their neat conclusions are the best way to dispense with them. Just like in the movies, though, almost everyone gets a happy ending.
Claire Looby
