Paperbacks

The Irish Times reviews this weeks paperbacks

The Irish Times reviews this weeks paperbacks

Mortification: Writers' Stories of Their Public Shame
Edited by Robin Robertson
Harper Perennial, £7.99

Bunch of literary celebs reveal their most stomach-churning moments? It could so easily have been a pain in the neck; instead, largely - one suspects - due to the inspired editing of Robin Robertson, this collection of oh-so-abject anecdotes is wonderfully cheering. In his introduction Robertson praises his contributors - among them Edna O'Brien, Carl Hiaasen, Janice Galloway, DBC Pierre, André Brink - for "returning to the scene of the crime and leading us, hot-faced, through their hell". While chuckling, one can't help noticing a) how well these guys tell their embarrassing tales - well, they are writers - and b) how many of them are Irish. William Trevor, Paul Muldoon, Colm Tóibín, Hugo Hamilton, John Banville, Ciaran Carson and others - is it something in the air here? Read it, and cringe with the best of them.

Arminta Wallace

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The Miraculous Fever-Tree: The Cure That Changed The World
Fiammetta Rocco
HarperCollins, £8.99

Rocco's book on the search for the cause and cure of malaria reveals itself to be a pulsating history of the last four centuries, dealing with corrupt popes, god-fearing missionaries, greedy monarchs, opportunistic merchants and daring scientists. She reveals the agony caused by the disease, including its effect on her family during their time in Kenya. With the discovery of the Cinchona Tree in Peru and the subsequent promotion of the healing powers of the quinine present in the "Peruvian Bark" by the Jesuit priests in the New World, the path towards a cure began. What follows is a story of religious rivalry, commercial and imperial expansion as the cure is developed and fought over. Ultimately, while the mosquito is found to be the culprit, it is man himself who stands out as both hero and villain in this tale of human failure and achievement.

Tom Cooney

Good Faith
Jane Smiley
Faber, £7.99

Joe Stratford, small-town "realtor", in the Pennsylvania-New England triangle, narrates a long, long tale of how he is duped by Marcus Burns, an ex IRS executive, now a smooth-talking speculator. Smiley likes to tackle big moral issues and invest them with a "social vision" and a mythic aura and then clothe them in character, language and plot, as she did so well in A Thousand Acres. Good Faith is no exception. She vividly creates the 1980s of Ronald Regan when banks and airlines were de-regulated and the Green movement was the preserve of a few intellectuals. The story turns on the development of Salt Key Farm - an old estate of Rockefeller or Pierpont Morgan vintage. However, her characters lack conviction in a novel not helped by deadpan writing. Would an estate agent part with his entire savings to a business partner who had previously reneged on their partnership agreement? I think not!

Kate Bateman

What I Saw: Reports From Berlin 1920-33
Joseph Roth, translated by Michael Hofmann
Granta, £8.99

Supreme novelist and inspired journalist, Galician-born Jew Joseph Roth is the acknowledged chronicler of the twilight hours of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and of 1920s Berlin. This dazzling selection of his eye-witness accounts of the chaos, sleazy defiance and despair that summed up the short-lived Weimar Republic shimmers with lyric irony and rage. He saw the gestures and moods that define history - it was he who identified the fledging Hitler. Roth was a true artist, a cynical romantic with a grasp of cultural and political nuance as well as a sensitivity to the "anonymous misery" of the ordinary people. On Berlin's streets, he describes the state funeral of Friedrich Ebert, speculates about the lives of the people whose photographs ended up in the police headquarters' file and notes the insane comedy of a cycling marathon.

Eileen Battersby

Another Kind of Life
Catherine Dunne
Picador, £6.99

This is a most unusual novel in the best sense - historical and dramatic, the narrative relies on the writer's skill in research and depiction for its impact, without ever nudging, let alone shoving, the reader into an authorial agenda. The book opens a window into the lives of several disparate Irish women in the early part of this century, criss-crossing from Dublin to Belfast and back again, taking in bits of France and Co Meath as well. Dunne masterfully recreates the turbulent and mundane worlds of these young women, showing their struggles, tragedies and rugged victories on the small scale apportioned to women early in the last century - without passing judgment. A slow burn and glow of a book - like a stick of incense, it beautifully creates an atmosphere and leaves the rest of the enjoyment to the imagination of the reader.

Christine Madden

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World
Niall Ferguson
Penguin, £8.99

Niall Ferguson's history of the British empire is issued in paperback to coincide with publication of his new book on the American empire, Colossus. Empire finds him in more relaxed mood than in the forcefully polemical Colossus. This rich story of "pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers and bankrupts" offers greater scope for colourful stories and amusing character portraits. But the central message of both books is the same: liberal empires are "a good thing". Ferguson argues that the British Empire was a force for progress and modernization. There were failings and mistakes, not least in Ireland. Yet, Ferguson writes, the result is that "for better for worse - fair or foul - the world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain's age of empire". Read it and (delete as appropriate) cheer/weep.

Richard Aldous