History is not made in a moment, but in a series of moments which build and intensify until they reach critical mass.
At Swim, Two Boys, by Jamie O'Neill (Scribner, £6.99 sterling )
Then, and only then, comes the explosion. Such is the concept which underpins Jamie O'Neill's lengthy, leisurely study of the year before 1916, and its impact on the lives of two boys: Jim, naïve younger son of the pompous shopkeeper Mr Mack; and Doyler, the tough offspring of Mr Mack's old army buddy. At the Forty Foot, the boys make a pact: that Doyler will teach Jim to swim and that in a year's time they will swim out to claim the Muglins rock for Ireland, and for themselves. A year, of course, can be a very long time in emotions as well as in politics, and O'Neill charts every heartbeat of this one in what is a jaw-droppingly ambitious novel with a retrospective coolness which betrays a very 21st-century sensibility. No wonder At Swim, Two Boys took 10 years to write. Its rattling pace, however, ensures that it takes no time at all to read. - Arminta Wallace
The Catholic Church, by Hans Küng (Phoenix Press, £6.99 sterling)
Jesus called women to his circle of disciples, praised marriage and nowhere made celibacy a condition of discipleship. Hans Küng's lightning tour through 2000 years of church history, written passionately, concisely and clearly, shows how far the institution founded in Jesus's name moved away from these origins. In the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire and with the development of Germanic Christianity, although the marriage of priests still occurred, increasing importance was attached to celibacy and the ordination of women as deacons was abolished - "just one expression of a heightened unbiblical hostility to women". To Küng, John XXIII is "the most significant pope of the 20th century", and Pope John Paul II has betrayed the second Vatican Council. For the church to have a future, he believes it must be rooted in its Christian origin, accept women in all ministries, be ecumenically open and not be Eurocentric, exclusivist or show a Roman imperialism. - Brian Maye
The Casting of Mr O'Shaughnessy, by Eamon Delaney (New Island Books, €10.99)
Eamon Delaney takes a second bite at the literary cherry by re-issuing his first novel, The Casting of Mr O'Shaughnessy, a satire on Irish politics in general and its republican past in particular. It's a fortuitous book indeed that gets to be endorsed by the success of a subsequent one, in this case, An Accidental Diplomat. The plot of this novel is straightforward: a statue is commissioned to commemorate Cornelius O'Shaughnessy, a hero of the 1916 Rising. However, other people have other plans, and it is this pushing and shoving between "official" and "unofficial" history which forms the work's backdrop. It's an amusing work but not so amusing that it needs almost 400 pages. Myles na gCopaleen's shattered Official Gaeldom with 114 in An Béal Bocht. Slagging off fictional characters is to be welcomed but trying to jolly up the assassination of Kevin O'Higgins with a nod to "trigger-happy alcoholics" is in poor taste. - Pól Ó Muirí
The End of the Peace Process, by Edward Said (Granta, £9.99 sterling)
The author, surely the most trenchant Palestinian critic of the Oslo accord writing in English, has more reason than most to say "I told you so". This is engaged and up-to-the-minute, albeit occasionally sloppily written; it's also a warning to the US: if you want to replace Arafat, you might well end up with a tougher (though perhaps less savage) opponent. Said says Arafat has "given way" on every major issue separating his people from the Israelis, "because the Palestinian leadership has selfishly put its own self-interest, its over-inflated squadrons of security guards, its commercial monopolies, its unseemly persistence in power, its lawless despotism, its anti-democratic greed and cruelty, before the collective Palestinian good". Ouch. Said would replace both Arafat and the Islamists with "principled resistance, well-organised civil disobedience". Which sure looks good from here. - Harry Browne
The Red Dancer by Richard Skinner (Faber& Faber, £6.99 sterling)
SEX, espionage, a rags-to-riches story moving from the Far East to prewar and wartime Europe - this fictional biography of the dancer and spy Mata Hari has all the elements of a page-turner. For all that, though, the book is strangely flat. Skinner paints his mural elaborately with a jeweller's attention to detail, but missing from the book is the essence of the main character. The reader follows Mata Hari to the East Indies in her dismal marriage to violent and selfish Maj Macleod of the Dutch army, back to Paris, through her transformation to exotic Oriental dancer to German spy to doomed convict. The parameters of her life are explained, but the woman entangled in them eludes understanding. Even if the materials aren't available to plumb the depths of this woman, the luxury of fictionalised biography is to be able to explore and embroider with impunity. The book reads like a detailed treatment for a TV series - which nevertheless has its attractions as well.
- Christine Madden
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young (Abacus, £6.99 sterling)
There's hope for us all. Plotline of Toby Young's confessional: gormless Englishman screws up the career chance of a lifetime, acts such a prat that people learn to avoid him like 10-day-old roadkill and loses the girl he loves by trying to be cool. But with a little help from his friends (including Sophie Dahl) and some truly traumatising therapies, a fit of daring emotional bravado gets her in the end. I can just visualise Hugh Grant in the film adaptation: "Bridget Jones gets a sex change and moves to New York". Is it humanly possible to be surrounded by the glitz of Manhattan as a Vanity Fair journalist, only to bungle it again and again? Nevertheless, this star-struck, egotistic Inspector Clouseau of the media world doesn't shrink from self-exposure to turn failure into fortune. Young delights in his sodden antics - the joy of a toddler playing with the contents of his nappy. Come on, all you hopeless dweebs, plunge in and keep the faith. - Christine Madden
Dangerous Muse: A life of Caroline Blackwood, by Nancy Schoenberger (Phoenix, £8.99 sterling)
This first biography of Lady Caroline Blackwood examines her role as muse and anti-muse to the three distinguished artists she married. They were the artist Lucian Freud, the composer Israel Citkowitz and the poet Robert Lowell. She had wealth, privilege and an aristocratic lineage but, as the author points out, her descent from the Guinness family, through her mother, "fabulous Guinness Girl" Maureen Guinness, seems to have brought with it a touch of that family's infamous curse. Her life reads like a celebrity magazine from the 1950s onwards in London, Paris, Los Angeles and New York, packed as it was with brilliant and celebrated writers, artists, poets, screenwriters, actors and critics. Blackwood's struggle with depression, her own and Lowell's, the death of her father when she was young and of her eldest daughter plus a distant relationship with her mother all contribute to her rather tragic story. - Janet Stafford