This week's paperbacks reviewed
Life Class
Pat Barker
Penguin, £7.99
In this novel, Booker prize-winning Pat Barker, author of the highly acclaimed Regeneration trilogy, describes the blithe lives of Elinor, Paul, and Neville, students at the Slade School of Art in pre-first World War London, with her customary economy of language, steady and cool. When the war breaks out, these friends find their talk of gallery openings and tough professors changes to discussions of how to - or how not to - involve oneself in the war. At the back of their minds - and the essential question of the novel itself - is whether art matters in wartime. Elinor, intent on devoting herself to her art and not the war that has been thrust on them, chooses to stay in London, while Paul and Neville join the Red Cross. Barker's descriptions of the casualties and conditions Paul faces as an orderly and ambulance driver on the front lines are graphic and moving. Her self-possessed writing is unfaltering, offering a quick but very absorbing read. Emily Firetog
Second Glance
Jodi Picoult
Hodder Stoughton, £7.99
It's August and the ground is frozen. Every morning a carpet of rose petals covers the porch of the gas station and every night flowers burst into bloom. In the small town of Comtosook, Vermont things are not as they ought to be and the residents wonder if it's because an American Indian burial ground is being disturbed to make way for a shopping mall. Ghost-hunter Ross Wakeman's visit to his sister in Comtosook is an attempt to find a reason to go on with life after the death of his fiancée. But, as he falls in love with the ghost of a woman who died over 70 years ago, he finds there may be many reasons to keep living. Jodi Picoult's style is assured as always, her topics ranging from the familiar and comfortable to the serious and disturbing. Her storytelling is engaging and precisely researched and her characters wonderfully portrayed in her latest page-turner. Claire Looby
Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees
Roger Deakin
Penguin, £8.99
Beneath the soaring, snow-capped Tien Shan mountains, nestled amongst the lush apple orchards of Kazakhstan, Roger Deakin basked in the glory of Eden. DNA analysis of the common apple has traced its genetic roots back to this region, adding weight to Deakin's Eden metaphor. Not everyone would travel to the ends of the earth for the humble apple, but Deakin personified the true nature lover. Trees, and everything derived from them, were his all-consuming passion. In 1969, he single-handedly built his home from overgrown ruins, using planks of oak he salvaged from a barn. Sharing a spiritual bond with every piece of wood he encountered, Deakin examined furniture and wood-sculpted art with a connoisseur's eye for detail.Even the gnarled barks of Australian gum trees held their appeal.
Trees of every kind stretch to the sky in twisting boughs and swooping branches in Wildwood, in memory of Deakin who, sadly, passed away shortly after its completion. Kevin Cronin
Trickster Makes This World: How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture
Lewis Hyde
Canongate £8.99
Tricksters are found in folk tales from many traditions. The trickster character inhabits the borderland between the gods and man. Hyde roams through the yarns about the Native American Coyote, the Norse Loki, the West African Legba and the Chinese Monkey, tricksters all. He places the trickster character at the centre of the deep human need for "sanctioned, structured and contained involvement with things that are normally out of bounds". Hyde's philosophical analysis of the trickster tales works in parallel with his analysis of modern trickster-artists such as Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg and Picasso. His personal appreciation of these artists, notably of Cage's music of noise and silence, is enlightening. Other modern tricksters are somewhat arbitrarily chosen: Hyde spends many entertaining pages justifying his choice of the freed American slave Frederick Douglass. At the core of the book, however, are the author's multi-layered interpretations of the trickster myths themselves. This is a challenging and thought-provoking work. Tom Moriarty
The Book of Other People Edited
By Zadie Smith
Penguin £7.99
When acclaimed British author Zadie Smith solicited stories from some of today's prize-winning authors to create a "charity anthology" benefiting 826NYC, a non-profit organisation that supports students in creative writing, she asked that the authors simply "make somebody up". The result is an eclectic collection which questions what character means in contemporary fiction: Edwidge Danticat's story LéLédescribes a sister coming to grips with a doomed pregnancy told from the point of view of her brother; Jonathan Safran Foer's Rhodais a short monologue from a dying grandmother speaking to her grandson; while Chris Ware's Jordan Wellington Lintis a cartoon of a boy from birth to the age of 13. There are quite a few knock-outs here, such as George Saunders's Puppy, ZZ Packer's Gideon, and Colm Tóibín's Donal Webster. It's not often you find an anthology with so many great writers, and Smith's simple prompt has allowed them to experiment with the craft, creating some unique and exciting pieces. Emily Firetog