A selection of paperbacks reviewed
In the Wake
Per Petterson.
Vintage, £7.99
Six years after his parents and brothers are killed in a ferry disaster, Arvid Jansen's life has hit "rock bottom". His attempts to come to terms with these deaths form the basis of In the Wake, a powerful story of loss and partial redemption from IMPAC prize-winner Per Petterson. Based on the Norwegian author's own experiences - many of his relatives were killed in a fire on the Scandinavian Star ferry in 1990 - the novel's bleak yet beautiful prose conveys the realities of bereavement without sentimentality. In Petterson's Oslo, the man-made sits side by side with the natural, and as Arvid begins to rebuild his life, the austere apartment blocks and icy forests gradually thaw under the warmth of human contact. Even the smallest encounters become symbolic of the return of a long-forgotten normality. It is, Petterson suggests, the most that can be hoped for. Freya McClements
The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli
Richard Aldous
Pimlico, £12.99
First a confession: I've always disliked Disraeli as glib, unprincipled, unscrupulously ambitious, rabidly imperialistic, anti-Irish and an appalling flatterer of an appalling monarch. Conversely, I've always liked Gladstone for the opposite reasons, and especially for his conversion to the cause of Irish Home Rule in 1885. Aldous is slightly of the Disraeli camp. If you don't suffer from my prejudice, this is the book for you. These two fierce rivals dominated British politics for much of the 19th century and that rivalry is here outlined with verve and panache . The drama is driven not only by the characters but by the pendulum of power constantly swinging between them. Along the way a recognisable picture of Britain emerges. Political campaigns that seem based on personal popularity contests are not just a contemporary phenomenon. Brian Maye
Strong Farmer: The Memoirs of Joe Ward
Ciaran Buckley and Chris Ward.
Lilliput Press, €14.99
It takes one sharp eye to spot the tell-tale sign - the perfectly-formed shape of a door with its own little eave in a stack of unthreshed corn. Fairies? Leprechauns? No, just the work of thirsty mice in search of rainwater after feasting on the dried wheat. For a whole new generation now growing up in Ireland with minimal experience of a family farm, such a magical snapshot of rural life in Co Meath may feel like another country entirely. Chris Ward, a descendant of Daniel O'Connell, has captured many more, having recorded the cattle trading experiences of her father, Joe, and the stories his own father related to him, spanning several generations. Such was the power of Joe Ward's recall and the pace of intervening change that the memoir serves as an invaluable archive. Lorna Siggins
Non-Violence: The History of a Dangerous Idea
Mark Kurlansky
Vintage £7.99
This is a brief history of nonviolent thought and action, from the Chinese sage Mozi (c. 400 BC) by way of the American Quakers and Gandhi to present-day conscientious objectors to the war in Iraq. Kurlansky's thesis is that nonviolence can work. Nonviolence isn't pacifism; Gandhi had contempt for pacifism: "rank cowardice and unmanly". Gandhi and Martin Luther King are here of course but Kurlansky introduces us to new heroes such as Bayard Rustin, a black Quaker who once travelled by bus from Louisville to Nashville, refusing to sit in the blacks-only section. Rustin, with echoes of Jesus, another Kurlansky hero, offers an assailant a second stick to beat him with. It's a slender, thought-provoking book, gentle but passionate and uncompromising, as non-violent heroes must be. Tom Moriarty
Rising Out: Seán Connolly of Longford
Ernie O'Malley
UCD Press, €20
This memoir provides an antidote to Coolacrease, the recent controversial TV documentary. An IRA atrocity in Offaly, however worth recording, was not representative of the War of Independence. Ernie O'Malley was one of the leaders of the guerrilla campaign which secured a stalemate against the Crown forces. Conscious of the key role played by local activists, he wrote the story of one such commander, Seán Connolly, shortly before his own death in 1957. Anything written by O'Malley is of value. The artist's eye for landscape and nature redeems this from being a military manual. Trapped by an RIC/military force, Connolly and five comrades were shot at Selton Hill, Co Leitrim, in March 1921. The "Orangeman" responsible for revealing the whereabouts of the flying column was executed subsequently by the IRA. "He had two revolvers on him." Brendan Ó Cathaoir
The Unfree French: Life Under the Occupation
Richard Vinen
Penguin, £9.99
The Nazi occupation of France in 1940, during which over 2 million French citizens were held in Germany and some 75,000 Jews were deported from France, had horrific consequences for ordinary people. Richard Vinen's meticulous assessment of this period concentrates on what life was like for those people, from the Frenchmen and women who volunteered or were forced to work in Germany to those who were left behind. Vinen draws on the memoirs of people from all sectors of French society to help explain their struggle for survival. He depicts a French people whose circumstances often left them in impossible positions. Many, including so-called collaborators, had to make unenviable choices based on misinformation, false assumptions and the fear of reprisals. Mark Rodden