The latest paperbacks reviewed
House of Meetingsby Martin Amis Vintage, £7.99
Amis draws on his considerable talent, intelligence, compassion and anger in this outstanding short novel in which the aged narrator battles with his past, his sins and the fact that he has survived. Pitch perfect in tone, the gruff narrative voice is regretful, bitter, edgy and rich in laconic asides. Lev is telling his own story and also that of his country, Russia, as it was most harrowingly, under Stalin. Amis, the gifted stylist, has always been a singular writer and in a tough, gut- wrenching and disciplined performance tale he has tackled material worthy of his range. It triumphs through the characterisation of Lev. Now 86 he prepares to leave the US and return home, but the only "home" that remains is the Gulag work camp he knew in the Russian Arctic. A heightened historical sensibility consolidates the balance of polemic and personal as Amis succeeds in using factual detail without the narrative appearing fact-laden. Eileen Battersby
There Are Little Kingdomsby Kevin Barry The Stinging Fly Press, €9.99
It's not hard to see why Kevin Barry won the 2007 Rooney Prize. The pieces in this, his debut short story collection, are smart, sassy and - with their references to organic farming, social substance abuse and linguistic confusion - totally now. Not for Barry the romantic smudging of rain on a soft-focus lens: his are tense, edgy slices of a small-town Ireland, where nastiness is never buried too far beneath the surface of things. On the other hand, his remorseless clarity of vision can be hilarious. The situations are so vivid as to be almost cinematic: bored teenagers on the loose in quiet streets; a man who steps off a country bus, unable to remember who he is or how he got there; a stressed-out genie in scruffy Nikes and chinos takes issue with the three wishes of his hapless client. If these 13 stories were chocolates, they'd be the dark, 85-per-cent kind - with chilli centres. Arminta Wallace
The Yacoubian Buildingby Alaa Al Aswany Harper Perennial, £7.99
First published in Egypt in 2002 and a best-seller in the Arab world, this is a finely crafted weave of stories about the people living in or connected to a once grand, now crumbling apartment and office block in Cairo. Al Aswany, a dentist who also writes, had his first surgery in the building (it does actually exist), and his familiarity with the place gives his book much of its appeal - you can feel the heat and smell the smells of Cairo, and completely believe in the people who live in and above the Yacoubian (some of the poorer ones live in a kind of shantytown on the roof). Though he doesn't shirk from showing the political corruption and bribery which seems rampant in Egypt, Al Aswany's humane attitude to his flawed characters gives heart to his novel, lifting it out of the realms of predictable polemic. Cathy Dillon
Wordsworth and Coleridge: The Friendship byAdam Sisman Harper Perennial, £9.99
The Friendshipfirmly anchors the meeting of Wordsworth and Coleridge within the heady and ever-changing political climate of the late 18th-century. Their mutual discovery was to result in one of the most ambitious, adventurous and pioneering collaborative efforts in all of literature. The Friendshipis as much a history of the poems that resulted from this collaboration as it is the story of the poets' personal relationship. Sisman also provides a fascinating account of the relationship between the poets and their respective families, and indeed Coleridge's friendships with other great writers. Sisman uses his research and provides his insights with delicacy and never loses his hold on the story at hand. The result is a fluid and very modern literary affair full of intrigue, egotism, duplicity - and drug addiction. Alan Murin
White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixtiesby Dominic Sandbrook Abacus £12.99
This monumental work is a follow-up to Sandbrook's Never Had It So Good (Suez to The Beatles).Almost every second sentence has a scrupulously attributed source but Sandbrook's writing is lively and he is masterly in his interweaving of the central political story with the rich social and cultural backdrop. The beleaguered Harold Wilson is described as "a self-deluding fantasist, paddling out in his little dinghy towards inevitable disaster . . . a Yorkshire Walter Mitty." The author stresses that most ordinary British folk were living dullish lives in their identikit new towns, decrepit high-rise flats or downtrodden northern cities (Newcastle was particularly grim). However, his own vivid account of the exciting goings-on - The Beatles (McCartney is favoured over Lennon), the Stones, Mary Quant and her mini-skirts - reinforces our view of the 1960s as swinging. Bring on the next instalment. Tom Moriarty
The Concert Pianistby Conrad Williams Bloomsbury. £7.99
At the height of his fame and ability, concert pianist Philip Morahan finds himself no longer able to play the piano. His life has been entirely dedicated to interpreting the works of the world's best-loved composers, and now he is 52, childless, loveless, an emotional cripple. Conrad Williams's prose is spellbinding and his imagery transports the reader, abducting the senses, getting to the essence of music, love, even the overlooked beauty of our surroundings. One cannot help empathising with Philip as he feels increasingly abandoned by the only constant he has ever known. His helpless connection with music is his only hope as he at last faces his past. This is a wonderfully evocative novel of passion, loss and the search for the true meaning of one's life. Claire Looby