A round-up of this week's paperbacks
Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History
Adam Nicolson
Harper Press, £9.99
When Adam Nicolson inherited Sissinghurst Castle from his father in 2004, it was one of the most popular attractions in southeast England. However, the beautiful gardens were far removed from the working farm of Nicolson's childhood. Here, Nicholson describes his efforts to return Sissinghurst to its former glory. Although in tune with contemporary ideas about sustainability, his plan to supply the restaurant at Sissinghurst with food grown on the estate is met with objections from the National Trust. To get a better understanding of what his plan involves, Nicholson spends two days working in the kitchen and meets with a farmer who used to work on the estate when Nicholson was a child. Eventually an agreement is made with the Trust. His childhood reminiscences and acute observations of nature illustrate why the project means so much to Nicolson – and make this a compelling read. Nicholas Hamilton
The World on Fire
Anthony Read
Pimlico, £14.99
"We are running a race with Bolshevism, and the world is on fire," said President Woodrow Wilson in 1919, the revolutionary events of which year this book traces. We certainly get the anti-Bolshevik case: "Bolshevism was founded on a lie, setting a precedent that was to be followed for the next 90 years". The excesses of Bolshevism were appalling and deserve condemnation but Read also rightly denounces the hysterical reaction in western Europe and the US, which led to equally appalling injustices. Right-wing British and American politicians created "a climate of irrational fear, unfounded suspicion and blind intolerance". Wilson wanted to invite the Soviets to the Paris Peace Conference and was against heavy-handed intervention in Russia, but Churchill considered dealing with the Bolsheviks to be as bad as "legalising sodomy". In general, Read deals with the events of 1919 fairly but his initial likening of the Bolsheviks of 1919 to al-Qaeda today might put many readers off reading his book. Brian Maye
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
Penguin, £7.99
The cover of this edition is a still from the current film, with Ben Barnes in the role of the beautiful youth with a portrait, rather than a plastic surgeon, in the attic. "Forever young," the movie's tagline intones, in one of those portentous Hollywood voiceover drawls, "forever cursed." Forever fiddling about with the classics, one might mutter as one turns to page one. Happily, however, Wilde's story emerges unscathed, as shiver-inducingly gothic as when you first read it as a teenager. The text hasn't all aged well, by any means: I don't remember, as a teenager, cringing at chapter seven's "fat Jew manager" with "his oily, tremulous smile" – but Wilde's almost forensic dissection of the question of whether beauty is, in fact, skin-deep is as pertinent as ever. Perhaps more pertinent than ever, in an age obsessed with celebrity, good looks and increasingly desperate attempts at eternal youth. Arminta Wallace
Deaf Sentence
David Lodge
Penguin, £7.99
Best known for humorous novels set in red brick universities in northern England, David Lodge combines comedy with tragedy in his latest work. Retired linguistics professor Desmond Bates is struggling to cope with the demands of a younger wife, a frail father and the increasingly strange behaviour of an American postgraduate student. He is also losing his hearing. The misunderstandings that arise are typical Lodge, but any lightness of tone is thrown into sharp relief by sombre descriptions of a loved one's decline. It is a work informed by Lodge's own experiences – with age, he too is going deaf – and he is particularly effective at describing the loss of dignity often associated with such a process. However authenticity in fiction can be extended too far, and at times his succession of elderly grumbles over mobile phone ringtones and the pace of modern life obscures what is otherwise a fresh exploration of life, death, and deafness. Freya McClements
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Walter Tevis
Penguin, £8.99
What a discerning addition to the list of Penguin's New Modern Classics range. Walter Tevis's novel The Man Who Fell to Earth first appeared in 1963 but came to public attention with the 1976 eponymous cult film starring David Bowie as the delicate yet highly advanced alien Newton. When he first arrives on the Earth, he seems a paragon of higher aspiration in his intelligence, gentility and single-minded mission. Nevertheless, Newton becomes increasingly bogged down and ultimately corrupted by the pathetic human vices to which so many succumb in order to survive the ordeal of human existence. This science-fiction novel, subliminally autobiographical, exhibits many hallmarks of the modernist era: the protagonists' sense of isolation and alienation in an inhospitable environment, the dalliance with and longing for high technology, the sense of society as uninspired yet hostile. As it is due to appear as a film remake and Broadway musical soon, get ahead and read it now. Christine Madden