Irish Times reviewers cast a critical eye over the latest crop of paperbacks.
The Resurrectionists. Michael Collins, Phoenix, £6.99
Michael Collins's story of a man who can't find his place in the world or even get comfortable in his own skin is also a powerful study of small-town America and the rootlessness of modern life. Frank's parents died mysteriously in a fire 30 years before, when he was five, and he feels compelled to leave New Jersey and head home to the dreary Michigan town to find out what happened. He's with his wife, Honey, their young boy and her difficult teenage son. The yearning for a sense of belonging is an unbreakable thread running through the Booker-shortlisted novel. There's a Raymond Carver feel in the style and a sharp humour that bursts through the pacey narrative. Above all, there's something deeply satisfying, and old-fashioned, about a novel with a plot that follows the central character in his quest and the who-done-it that's solved in the end. - Bernice Harrison
Porno. Irvine Welsh, Vintage, £6.99
Ten years ago, Trainspotting burst into bookstores like Jack Nicholson wielding an axe - "Here's Begbie!". Now Sick Boy, Rents, and Spud are back, but this time it's the conniving Sick Boy rather than the opportunistic Rents who is in the driving seat. He returns to Edinburgh to run his aunt's pub, and quickly draws Rents into a fresh scam to make low-rent amateur porn. Meanwhile, alcoholic, drug-addled Spud is trying to write a book, while Begbie is out of prison and dropping in on old friends like a grenade without a pin. As the plot careers towards the Cannes (Adult) Film Festival, Welsh cuts the brakes and leaves his creations to survive the consequences of their violence, lust, anger and betrayal. The phonetic Scottish dialect is used sparingly, and Welsh endows his characters with a sympathy and depth that was lacking in the original. - Breffni O'Malley
Inferno. Patricia Melo, Bloomsbury, £6.99
Kingie's descent begins when he starts working as a lookout for a local drug-running operation in Rio de Janeiro. At 11 years of age, his life is miserable; an absent father, an abusive mother and few future prospects cause him to begin a life of crime, firstly to feed a crack habit and then, post-addiction, as an assistant to a ruthless drug-runner, Miltão. As his relationship with his family unravels, he spends more and more time around Miltão and his entourage, killing for the first time at 14 and forging friendships with criminals such as Fake and Reader and also with the mysterious, intoxicating Marta. Written by Sao Paulo author Patricia Melo, the book moves at a hectic pace as it paints a bleak, convincing picture of the slums of Brazil. It's an interesting tale, but one which is handicapped by a convoluted style which demands much from the reader. - Shane Stokes
The Truth About Babies: From A-Z. Ian Sansom, Granta, £6.99
Ian Sansom's musings on life with a new baby will fascinate those individuals whose life's goal is the pursuit of knowledge. To other, lower mortals, the alphabetised notes on whimsical themes - baby monitors, jars, toes and waste, for instance - may seem a bit over the top. Offering anything from a sentence to a few pages on his chosen topic, Samson also draws on historical and contemporary works of fact and fiction to inform his readers about bottle teats, breast milk, laughter or time. He is at his best when he captures truths about life with a baby (for example: "We bicker. We do not argue: an argument requires energy and commitment", or "Yes, all babies look like Winston Churchill) or when he tells us something personal, such as: "We call you 'sausage'. I can't believe I'm calling anyone sausage. All those years of education." And, of course, there's the familiar lament: "When I think about all that quiet I wasted I could cry." - Sylvia Thompson
John Charles McQuaid: Ruler of Catholic Ireland. John Cooney, O'Brien Press, €15
The subject of this fine biography was a complex figure. On a personal level, he had many attractive qualities, treating all whom he met with equal solicitude and courtesy. The memory of some of his students in Blackrock College was of his humour. But the most abiding impression John Cooney creates is of a narrow-minded priest and prelate who was something of a control freak. McQuaid's anti-Protestantism ran deep. His attitude to sexual morality was intensely strict. He kept a tight rein on the priests in his diocese. When inevitable change came in the 1960s, he chose to swim futilely against the tide. As John Horgan wrote, the hallmark of his career was "a mixture of institutional severity and personal kindness". This is an important study of a major player in 20th-century Ireland. - Brian Maye
In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens
Donald McRae, Scribner, £7.99
This one is awkward. McRae's earlier, superb Dark Trade won the 1996 Sports Book of the Year award, and he won again last year for this. But as fine as this book is, for me it is seriously - if not fatally - flawed in McRae's attempt to tell his tale in "factionalised" form, leading to his presenting us with "conversations" between the main players. What we have here is a fine biography of Owens, an even better biography of Louis, an intelligent examination of how white America punished them for their success and the important role these friends played in the evolution of a black consciousness in the mid-1900s, all wrapped up in the first draft of a not very promising novel. Then again, critics at the Guardian and the Sunday Times loved it. Judge for yourself. - Joe Culley