The latest titles reviewed
Stuart Alexander Masters Harper Perennial, £7.99
Stuart Shorter belonged to the "chaotic" homeless, living in a world that makes no sense to outsiders. Alexander Masters befriended him while working with a homeless project in Cambridge and tells his amazing story, seeking to find the root cause of Stuart's plight. Re-drafted, at Stuart's behest, to sound "more like what Tom Clancy writes" this unusual biography moves backward in time, unearthing secrets, trying to explain how a "happy go-lucky little boy" of 12 ended up as an alcoholic drug addict living on the streets. Stuart's childhood - and his later behaviour - is horrific yet he is an engaging, loyal and determined character whose speech is deftly captured by the author. A biography of an unknown homeless man might not seem the most appealing read but this story of a damaged life is darkly funny, moving and told in an un-patronising style. Eoghan Morrissey
Lipstick Jungle Candace Bushnell Abacus, £6.99
Survival in the Lipstick Jungle requires keen ambition coupled with style, a desire to conquer and, of course, a close group of girlfriends to help you ride out every storm. Candace Bushnell's women are successful fortysomethings with the wherewithal to buy those essential luxuries such as Manolos and Cristal. Victory is a designer recovering from a coolly received show at Fashion Week, magazine executive Nico wants the CEO's job and is having an affair with an underwear model, and Wendy is a movie executive whose househusband files for divorce. Sharing a love of NYC, they have struggled within male-dominated organisations to become leaders, but there's always that glass ceiling to break through. Fans of Sex and the City love Bushnell's light, name-dropping style. The uninitiated will realise that the gender war still rages in Manhattan. Claire Looby
The Place at the End of the World Janine Di Giovanni Bloomsbury, £8.99
In 1988, Janine Di Giovanni was hugely inspired by an Israeli human rights lawyer called Felicia Langer and decided to become a writer. Since then she has produced four books and reported from some of the darkest places on Earth. Her mission: to give witness to those unlucky enough to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time. This collection of articles, written over the past decade, brought her to Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine; to the "forgotten" wars in Chechnya, Algeria and Somalia; to Aids clinics in India; to Sierra Leone to listen to the child soldiers, and eventually back home to the comfortable hamlets of Red Bank, Fair Haven and Rumson, New Jersey - where many of the victims of the 9/11 attacks lived - without ever losing sight of her mission. Martin Noonan
Irish Political Prisoners, 1848-1922: Theatres of War Seán McConville Routledge, npg
This is a magisterial tome, based on prodigious research, sustained by intellectual energy, richly annotated and written with verve. Prof McConville believes history is about imaginative sympathy as much as detached analysis. This work encompasses the tragedy of Ireland. Class and political expediency determined the treatment of the transported Young Irelanders. The seven leaders were treated as "gentlemen convicts", while their working-class followers joined the labour gangs. The Fenians experienced squalor carceris. The ensuing amnesty campaign contributed to the rise of constitutional nationalism. Michael Davitt emerged from three terms of imprisonment, like Mandela, free of bitterness. As the Irish struggle intensified, prison came to be viewed as a theatre of war. Appropriately this edition appeared in 2005, the year of IRA decommissioning. A concluding volume is awaited eagerly. Brendan Ó Cathaoir
Beatrice's Spell Belinda Jack Pimlico, £8.99
Sodomy, bribery, torture, murder, madness - Belinda Jack's Renaissance tale about the beautiful but doomed 18-year-old Beatrice Cenci is packed with incident and drama. Physically and sexually abused by her psychotic father, Francesco, a doyen of Renaissance Rome, Beatrice and other members of her family plotted and carried out the tyrant's murder. It was a bungled affair and the perpetrators were caught, tortured and executed. There was a great outpouring of public sympathy for Beatrice at the time and her grisly death passed into legend. Jack goes on to document the effect Beatrice's martyrdom had on generations of artists attracted by her mythology. Shelley, Herman Melville and Antonin Artaud all became her disciples and it is Jack's thesis that their devotion lead them to tragedy so that Beatrice's story in fact turns out to be a curse. Ken Walshe
Enright Mark O'Sullivan Blackstaff Press, £6.99
Tom Enright is stationed in Thurles barracks during the War of Independence following a service career that took him to outposts of the empire and beyond. He has been in many near-death, always hazardous, situations and before every incident in this action-packed novel a parallel scene enters Enright's mind. The result is a strong sense of place and time and a first-hand glimpse of the life of a man who is neither exclusively a mercenary nor a nationalist.There are two women in Enright's life, his wife, Mary, who lives in Kerry and local woman Helen Peters. Mary pleads with him to quit being a policeman - rumours of his Tipperary-based violent reprisal activities have reached Listowel. Helen, like himself, is a victim whom he tries to comfort, but he is so angry and wracked with guilty inner confusion that the reader loses sympathy. Kate Bateman