The latest releases reviewed.
JPod
Douglas Coupland
Bloomsbury, £7.99
Coupland fans should enjoy this bizarrely comic tale about a gang of computer geeks stranded in a grim workpod on the edge of a games software development company in Vancouver. The narrator, Ethan, is a typical Coupland hero - smart, sane and possessed of a stubborn residue of compassion for our disposable, dispensable planet and its deluded inhabitants. The plot careers wildly, allowing the author to deal with a host of contemporary issues: the economic rise of China; globalisation and sweatshop labour; the over-processing of food; e-Bay; drugs. There is lots of postmodern tricksiness such as copy-and-
paste snippets in different fonts, and the fact that Coupland himself is a character in the novel. Fifteen years after Microserfs, Coupland has nailed down the next generation of geeks in his customary sharp yet compassionate fashion. Cathy Dillon
The Birth House
Ami McKay
Harper Perennial, £ 7.99
The first daughter after five generations of sons, Dora Rare is born at the turn of the 20th century into a remote fishing community in Nova Scotia. She becomes the local midwife's apprentice, learning from her mentor's experience and her book of herbal remedies before taking over the role herself. When the village men leave to fight in the first World War, the women are left behind until the arrival of a young male doctor who woos them with science and casts doubt over Dora's skills. Ami McKay's debut novel brings a new voice to a debate that continues to resonate, as these hardy Canadian women battle for control over their own reproduction. At times, however, she seems to circle her targets rather than take them on, layering careful research arbitrarily at the occasional expense of the narrative. Fiona McCann
The Illusionist
Jennifer Johnston
Headline Review, £7.99
"Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." In her 1995 novel, now reprinted, Jennifer Johnston demonstrates the veracity of Tolstoy's statement with an unusual tale of magical illusion and marital strife. Stella's estranged husband, Martyn, has died, and as she waits for their daughter to return from his funeral, she recalls life with an "illusionist" who promised her a world filled with "magic offerings of love, glittering beads, bright flowers, gems, baubles", then used them to create and sustain the fantasy that was their life together. As so often, Johnston uses the intimacy of the personal to address the wider issue of Anglo-Irish relations, with Martyn's death in an IRA bomb seen as poetic justice for his derogatory attitude towards his wife's Irishness. In death Martin's greatest illusion is revealed - and as the lines between fantasy and hard reality blur, the reader is left to wonder which is the more attractive. Freya McClements
Hannibal Rising
Thomas Harris
Heinemann, £11.99
This pulp literary nasty is essentially a quick-buck novelisation of Harris's own screenplay, which appeared on shop shelves shortly before the film was released. Hannibal Rising tells you more than you could ever want to know about the traumatic childhood of the gourmet serial killer. The aristocratic young Lecter survives the Nazi occupation of Lithuania with his incisors intact, then hunts down the scavenging degenerates who cannibalised his little sister. The war-era portions of the story are effectively tense and brutal, but the novel collapses into dull pretentiousness once Hannibal goes to live in France with his uncle and origami-folding Japanese aunt. Harris intentionally stacks the deck in the bad doctor's favour, making him easy to root for by dehumanising all of his targets. Enough with Hannibal the Cannibal already. Kevin Sweeney
The Big Oyster: A Molluscular History of New York
Mark Kurlansky
Vintage, £8.99
If you love oysters and if you love New York, you will love this book. For the history of New York oysters is the history of New York itself. In tandem with the decline and ultimate disappearance of its oysters (pollution saw to that in the 1920s) is the rise and rise of New York City. And its oysters were exceptional, for they measured eight to 10 inches and were cheap ("all you can eat for six cents"). Dickens adored them, but Thackeray complained that eating an American oyster was "like eating a baby". And you may not like to know that if the fresh oyster is carefully opened, the diner is eating an animal with a working brain, a stomach, intestines, liver and still-beating heart. As for the "liquor", that watery essence of oyster flavour: it is mostly blood. The book is also jotted with recipes. A delectable read, ideal for the deck chair. Owen Dawson
The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working
Robert Calderisi
Yale University Press, £9.99
Why is Africa so resistant to development? Just two countries, Ghana and Uganda, have the same level of real income today that they had in 1970. Calderisi, a Canadian who worked for many years in African countries, thinks Africans look for excuses too often, and need to take greater responsibility. Western trade barriers have created difficulties for exporters - but for developing countries in Asia, this problem has been surmountable. In his view, African corruption and bad government are at the root of the problem, so more aid is not the answer. Extra money would reduce poverty more effectively if it were spent in India and China, he argues, since these countries are home to three times more people, lower corruption and better economic management. Instead, Calderisi thinks Africa needs tough medicine, which he outlines in a 10-point manifesto. A brilliant, striking book. Ralph Benson