A selection of the latest paperbacks reviewed
The Song Before it is Sung by Justin Cartwright Bloomsbury. £7.99
A friendship forged at Oxford between the renowned Isaiah Berlin and Adam von Trott (Elya Mendel and Axel von Gottberg of the novel), one Jewish, the latter a scion of an old Prussian family, who was tortured and shot by Hitler, is the subject of this exceptional novel. However, it could not have been written if letters had not been bequeathed to its narrator, Conrad Senior, as a sacred trust from his former professor, EA Mendel - not because he was the "most brilliant" but because he was "the most human" of his students. The novel soars as it engages the reader in a harsh, complex story of betrayal. Senior's marriage to a doctor is one of the parallel stories. She's the scientific foil to his "humanity"; a little unfair as she just wants him to be a decent provider. The narrator's research takes him to Germany and once to Ireland, where he meets the son of the von Trott character in the Shelbourne. The many imagined wartime encounters are very convincing. A terrific work.Kate Bateman
Risky Business: People, Pastimes, Poker, Books byAl Alvarez Bloomsbury, £8.99
Alvarez has been at this writing lark for 50 years and more, and this small collection of his essays, selected by the author, is a stylish, engaging reminder of the power of the form. Though he first made his name as a literary critic, Alvarez's interests, indeed passions, are wildly diverse, from the physical exhilaration of mountaineering or polar exploration to the mental discipline required to survive in the world of championship poker. Put simply, the guy can write about anything and be compelling; he is a sharp, insightful, opinionated and funny companion. It is a perfect book for the aeroplane, which is appropriate given one of the author's more risky businesses is flying about in decrepit aircraft. Joe Culley
The Trader, The Owner, the Slave: James Walvin Vintage £8.99
Walvin tells three stories of men whose lives were bound up with the British slave trade of the 18th century: John Newton was a sailor and slave trader; Thomas Thistlewood was a slave owner in Jamaica and Olaudah Equiano was himself a slave. None of the men win the reader's admiration: Newton later turned to religion and but he is portrayed as a hypocrite; Thistlewood was unbelievably cruel to his slaves and Equiano, a survivor against all the odds, comes across as something of an Uncle Tom. The author makes clear the extent and terrible cruelty of the slave trade: between 1662 and 1897, British ships carried 3.25 million Africans from their homes across the Atlantic. This is a very readable account, based on the men's own diaries, of an almost forgotten horror. But it would require a Toni Morrison to make us feel the daily misery of life for slaves and for later generations of American blacks. Tom Moriarty
Cúpla Focal by Anna Heussaff Cois Life, €12
Anna Heussaff has been quietly carving herself a niche in the field of fiction for adult learners and teenagers. Cúpla Focalis her third novel and one which contains all the successful elements of her first two, Bás Tobann and Vortex. Cúpla Focalis set in an Irish class for adult learners; the twist is the eternal triangle - Caoimhe fancies the teacher, Neasán, but he has his eye on Aisling. Cúpla Focalis aimed at adults with basic fluency in Irish and, as a result, Heussaff pares the language back to the bone. But she does this with a certain amount of style. Her writing is clear, precise, immediately intelligible but she still manages to make it emotive. Yes, the characters are constrained in their actions by the necessity to use a basic vocabulary. However, Heussaff's gift is to ensure they are still characters who exhibit anger, envy and doubt. Pól Ó Muirí
Boy in the World by Niall Williams HarperCollins. €7.99
The boy, J or Jay, runs from the church on his Confirmation day, leaving his guardian, Joe Carpenter, to find his father. Sound familiar? Biblical and religious references abound, as they do in Paulo Coelho's tales, in Williams's story of a boy in search of his identity, his meaning in a world that appears to be at war with itself, where God seems to be far away, where the ultimate enemy is invisible and may strike anywhere without reason. J looks for signs of God's protection but finds only the help of strangers whose quests seem to be as fruitless as his own. From his home in a small Irish village, through Europe, with terrorist bombs damaging every city he visits, the boy searches for his father, for signs, for answers, finishing in a North African orphanage, bringing hope to the hopeless. Perhaps all stories of longing come from the same foundation. Claire Looby
142 Strand: A Radical Address in Victorian London by Rosemary Ashton Vintage, £9.99
Between 1847 and 1854, 142 Strand was the address of John Chapman, a radical bookseller of Byronic good looks and frustrated literary ambition. Under Chapman's tutelage, volumes in defence of birth control, divorce, atheism, and the enfranchisement of women were ushered into print. He oversaw, in whole or in part, the careers of Emerson and George Eliot. In clean, unfussy prose, Ashton, biographer of Coleridge and Carlyle, recounts Chapman's career as a patron of subversive talent, and the upsets and reversals of his unconventional private life (Chapman shared his wife's bed only "with a struggle", and invited his mistresses to live under his roof). In Ashton's hands, Chapman becomes a figure of fitful modernity, working on behalf of liberal ideals in a conservative age. This volume is a feat of encyclopedic research, impressively marshalled. Kevin Power