The latest titles reviewed
The Earth and Sky of Jacques Dorme, Andreï Makine, Sceptre, £7.99
In Makine's eighth novel, a published writer pursues a quest born of memories shared with him by an elderly French woman when he was a boy. Years earlier she had had a brief wartime romance with a French pilot who had decided to serve Russia. Through her lover she rediscovered her France which she had lost through having stayed in Russia. The airman, Jacques Dorme, disappeared and, with him, the dreams of the once young woman who was old when the narrator had first met her while living in a post-war orphanage. She teaches him French, gives him a sense of a childhood home and, in time, he learns about her life and lost love. Memory and the theme of displacement caused by war shape Makine's profound, elegiac fiction. This novel of truths, heroism and loneliness is shaped by his evocative, limpid prose. Eileen Battersby
Fear: A Cultural History, Joanna Bourke, Virago, £9.99
This entertaining and interesting study investigates the prevailing fears that have dominated British and American life from the end of the 19th century to the present day. Bourke, a history professor at London's Birkbeck College, cuts through the hysteria to give a clear-eyed account of these states of fear. Using a range of insightful anecdotes she explores this emotion, looking at everything from the fear of being buried alive to the fear borne of crouching under one's desk waiting for the bomb to drop, to nightmarish psychological fears and the constant fear of the "other", concluding with a timely discussion of terrorism. With little didacticism or hyperbole and a refusal to draw excessive conclusions, Bourke maps the impact these fears have on societies. And she quotes anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who points out: "Not only ideas, but emotions too, are cultural artefacts in man." Larry Ryan
On the Road, Shay Healy, O'Brien Press, €12.95
Broadcaster, novelist and songwriter Shay Healy has rocked with U2, rapped with Johnny Cash, ridden with Roy Rogers and reclined in Tammy Wynette's bath, so he's got a few stories to tell. He's best-known for writing Eurovision winner What's Another Year? and for presenting the successful TV series Nighthawks, but here, alongside the success stories, are wry tales of his failures: the aborted Abba parody album, the sci-fi musical that never took off, the doomed quest to prove that the Incredible Hulk was Irish, and the many brave, reckless attempts to cut it as a live entertainer both here and in the US. It's a witty, self-effacing compendium of Healy highlights and lowlights, but many of the stories seem to run out of steam en route to a punchline that isn't really there. Kevin Courtney
Paul Newman, Daniel O'Brien, Faber, £8.99
Is there really such a thing as the "Newman luck"? Read this biography and you'll believe it. Greek-god handsome, apparently model husband, fearless racer, philanthropist, proud liberal (he turned up at number 19 on Richard Nixon's famous enemies list, the only celebrity to crack the top 20), inventor of the best balsamic vinegar dressing on the market, all-around good guy . . . oh, and an A-list movie star for half a century and counting. Paul Newman has known tragedy - the untimely death of a self-destructive child - but he comes across as remarkably free of inner demons. Author O'Brien achieves an impressive balance in charting both Newman's personal life and long movie career, from the classics to the clinkers. Along the way he comes up with occasionally fascinating trivia, such as the fact that Telly Savalas was actually the first choice to play Lucas Jackson, what would become Newman's signature role, in Cool Hand Luke. Kevin Sweeney
John Canon O'Hanlon: The Man and his Legacy, Teddy Fennelly, Arderin, €12
In a time of suffering and shame caused by a small minority of priests, it is reassuring to read about a sagart a rúin. In 1847, as a newly ordained priest from Laois, John O'Hanlon ministered in St Louis, Missouri. Day after day steamers came up the Mississippi from New Orleans crowded with emaciated Famine refugees "in a state of utter prostration". Unsurprisingly, Fenianism would flourish in the Irish ghetto of St Louis. By then O'Hanlon had returned to Ireland due to ill-health. He became a literary figure and was parish priest of Sandymount for 25 years. Joyce mentioned Canon O'Hanlon six times in Ulysses. Fennelly's attractive monograph is complemented by Like Sun Gone Down: Selections from the Writings of John Canon O'Hanlon (e-mail: galmoypress@eircom.net). Brendan Ó Cathaoir
From the Shadow of Dracula: A Life of Bram Stoker, Paul Murray, Pimlico, £12.99
Bram Stoker was a burly red-haired Irishman who created Count Dracula in his spare time. As business manager at Sir Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre, he knew Bernard Shaw, Wilde and the young Winston Churchill. As a writer, he was friendly with Walt Whitman, Conan Doyle and Lord Tennyson. But in life, he was overshadowed by Irving, and in death, by Dracula. Murray examines Stoker's writings to understand the man. Murray argues that Irving's Lyceum entertained the establishment, rather than challenged it. Was Stoker simply doing the same in his writing, or is Dracula deliberately subversive? Murray's literary approach gives insight into Stoker's lesser-known works. But the ambiguity of Stoker's greatest novel makes biographical conclusions risky, and parts of his character remain in the shadow of Dracula. Ralph Benson