Irish Times reviewers cast a critical eye over the latest paperbacks on offer.
Vernon God Little. D.B.C. Pierre, Faber, £7.99
Life is tough on Vernon God Little, the all-swearing, all-losing anti-hero of D.B.C. Pierre's Man Booker-winning comic début, an account of how being in the wrong place at the wrong time can backfire. Vernon, of the weird hair, wayward sexual fantasising and unreliable bowels, happens to be in the men's room when his unhappy best friend, a six-fingered Mexican boy, opens fire, killing 16 of their classmates and then himself. Vernon is arrested. The Coen Brothers meets Huck Finn and Bart Simpson in what follows. Manic exasperation, a lot of swearing and, eventually, much philosophical insight shape the relentless comedy. Vernon and his despairing Mom appear as innocents caught in the pornographic glare of contemporary US society. Small-town central Texas never looked so offbeat, nor so real. - Eileen Battersby
Almost There. Nuala O'Faolain, Penguin, £7.99
If you haven't read Are You Somebody?, the wildly successful first volume of Nuala O'Faolain's memoir, you needn't feel daunted by Almost There, nor should you assume that volume two will appeal exclusively to the over-50s. Grippingly honest from the first page, O'Faolain surveys her recent professional and personal past with impressive detachment. Cruel to herself to be kind, she voices her distaste at some of her choices and her pride in others. She sees middle age as a time of life which, unlike its youthful counterpart, adolescence, no one foresees as being so difficult, and debunks the notion that by sole virtue of being an adult one can handle it gracefully. The tone alone is so compelling that although Almost There stands fine in its own right, anyone who missed Are You Somebody? will end up grabbing a copy to continue the spell. - Nora Mahony
The Sword and the Cross. Fergus Fleming, Faber and Faber, £8.99
A solid history of French covertness and colonisation in Algeria is the backdrop to the lives of Henri Laperrine (the "sword", military serviceman and creator of the French camel corps) and Charles de Foucauld (the "cross", priest and writer), two Boys Own adventurers who, dissatisfied with the boredom and luxury of French society, set out to conquer the Saharan landscape for France and God. In an illuminating exploration of military intervention and missionary enthusiasm, Fleming captures the loneliness, paucity and isolation of Saharan life . Central to the tale is the desert oblivion - the rock-faces, mountain passes, oases and extreme weather conditions of the Hoggar, Tuat and Adjer - that ruthlessly ignored the obsession of empire and that, along with the Tuareg, a nomadic people, thwarted France's fixation with the desert outposts of Beni Abbes, In Salah and Adrar. - Paul O'Doherty
Cathedrals of the Flesh: My Search for the Perfect Bath. Alexia Brue, Bloomsbury, £7.99
Here's a travelogue with a twist: author Alexia Brue and her college pal, Marina, decide, after a couple of days indulging in a Paris bathhouse, that they will open a hamam of their own in their hometown of New York. Brue takes off for a fortnight's research in Istanbul, only to return home six months later having sweated, scrubbed and cooled her way through several countries. She finds near-fanatical levels of bathing in Finland and visits Japan's thermal wonderlands; she suffers the almost penitential rituals in Moscow and excavates ancient Roman baths in Greece. It is fleshed out with a side-story involving a crumbling relationship, but she is best when describing the bathing, even if the writing veers between guidebook prose and diary musings. Brue ends up as a writer for Spa Finder magazine, which sounds like her perfect job. - Shane Hegarty
In Search of Shangri-La. Michael McRae, Penguin Books, £8.99
The inspiration for Shangri-La and long believed to hold the gateway to paradise, the Tsangpo Gorge in Tibet has been as actively sought by the West as it has been jealously protected by the East. The heart of this story is the riddle of the Tsangpo River and how what is now recognised as the world's deepest gorge could hide a gargantuan mythical waterfall. From turn-of-the-century daredevils and National Geographic-sponsored teams, to devout pilgrims in search of the path to paradise, this book is filled with adventure and spirituality. The dismaying impact of the West on one of the world's last truly remote regions is a small sidebar to a riveting and inspirational story of man, nature and a journey that is beyond geography, and it all intoxicates the mind like the view from a majestic mountain-top. -Laurence Mackin