A selection of paperbacks reviewed by The Irish Times
Running with Reindeer: Encounters with Russian Lapland
Roger Took
John Murray, £8.99
This is an entertaining travelogue that mixes adventure, documentary and history in the backwaters of Russian Lapland in the Arctic Circle. Roger Took, an English art historian and museum curator, delves into the minds, desires and madnesses of the Saami, Komi and Russian peoples of, among other places, Kanevka and Lovozero, who in the years following the collapse of the Soviet state, recall the terrors and mismanagement of former regimes which forced collectivisation, world wars and modernity on peoples content to survive within the dictums of nature. While at times a sad tale of poverty, alcoholism and crime, this is a useful social document of a potentially beautiful existence dominated unfortunately by the ubiquitous mosquito (yes, millions of mosquitoes). - Paul O'Doherty
The Parthenon
Mary Beard
Profile Books, £8.99
Mary Beard teaches classics and has written widely on classical culture and its reception in the contemporary world. In this book's acknowledgements she says that it was fun to research and write. It shows throughout her engagingly written text as she seeks to unravel the complex tale of the Parthenon from its former roles of pagan temple and edifice for Christian and Islamic worship to its current roles as modern icon and ancient ruin. Apart from the building being in the middle of a war zone for most of its existence, its fabric suffered from the effects of a fire in the third century AD, an explosion in 1687 and the activities in the early 1800s of Lord Elgin as well as other lesser humiliations. The never-ending controversy over the Elgin Marbles is addressed with a sense of proportion and humour. The book is more than fun to read. It is a delight. - John McBratney
The Ulick O'Connor Diaries 1970-81: A Cavalier Irishman
Ulick O'Connor
John Murray, £8.99
Even though he didn't drink until his mid-40s, Ulick O'Connor's Diaries reveal he revelled in all the bonhomie of the world's great bars, whether in Grogans off Grafton Street with Dublin's literary and political classes, holding forth in the Lion's Head in Greenwich Village ("for drinkers with a writing problem"), or on a pub-crawl in Chicago with gritty urban chronicler Nelson Algren during which they discuss Algren's affair with Simone de Beauvoir. In New York he stays at the Mecca for the world's bohemians, the Chelsea Hotel, where he performs his Brendan Behan one-man play and discovers that he may be related, on his mother's side, to Vlad the Impaler. There are minor errors of fact (Congressman James O'Connor did not hire Irish writer Lafcadio Hearn for the New Orleans Item newspaper), but these diaries are alive with revealing, smoky vignettes from Dublin to Manhattan, London to Tangier. - John Moran
The Dragon Seekers: The Discovery of Dinosaurs During the Prelude to Darwin
Christopher McGowan
Abacus, £8.99
The fossil collectors in this book, are unquestionably eccentric, and delightfully so, a circle of intriguing English men and - famously - one woman whose palaeontological findings transformed people's perceptions of geological history and the remote past. Much of this book is deservedly hooked on the woman, the extraordinary Mary Anning, an uneducated, working-class woman who became one of the most successful collectors of fossils of all time. McGowan's enthusiasm changes what could have been a tedious tale into a stimulating and refreshing read. Anyone who has gone searching for mushrooms in the early morning will understand the excitement he conveys with each new find. A surprise reading pleasure. - Owen Dawson
Dusty In Memphis
Warren Zanes
Continuum Books, £6.99
This essay in mini-book form (120 pages in A5 format) is written by a former member of a US rock band who absconded from the industry to graduate eventually with a PhD in Visual and Cultural Studies. Zanes's dry analysis of Dusty Springfield's classic white soul album is coupled with revealing interviews with Jerry Wexler, the man behind the song selection, and Stanley Booth, the album's original liner notes writer. But in trying to express academically the essence and context of the record Zanes becomes unstuck; so too does the reader. It is adequate for reference, then, but you'd be far better off playing the record and feeling the music. This book is part of a series of essays of similar length on albums by Love (Forever Changes), Neil Young (Harvest), Jeff Buckley (Grace) and My Bloody Valentine (Loveless). - Tony Clayton-Lea
The Tower Menagerie
Daniel Hahn
Pocket Books, £7.99
Roll up, roll up, see the wonders of the Tower of London! Behold the lions and elephants from foreign lands and the polar bear that feeds himself from the River Thames. Stroll through the monkey room and marvel at the vicious cheetah. In the 13th century it became de rigueur to send specimens of native animals to foreign heads of state as bizarre, if cumbersome, gifts. The English rulers' response was to dispatch them to the Tower of London, and before long it became home to a menagerie of exotic creatures. This is no chronological account; it veers between centuries from paragraph to paragraph, and Hahn describes the history of the Tower's zoo with the grander themes of the development of veterinarian science, animal rights and London's history as a backdrop. A delightful safari-ride on the back of a peculiar monster. - Laurence Mackin