Irish Times reviewers cast a critical eye over the latest batch of paperbacks.
In Arcadia. Ben Okri, Orion, £6.99
The concept of a platonic ideal runs through the novels of Ben Okri. His characters are constantly looking towards a perfect world. But at first Lao, the narrator of Okri's latest novel, seems to rebel against all his creator holds dear. Lao is a cantankerous TV presenter who, because he needs the money, has accepted a mysterious offer to travel around Europe making a documentary about the search for Virgil's Arcadia. En route from London to Paris, however, he succumbs to the notion of the magical pastoral idyll, with depressingly banal results. The story climaxes in the Louvre, where Lao and his motley crew of film makers experience an irritatingly vague epiphany in front of Poussin's famous Arcadian painting Et in Arcadia Ego. The reader is left feeling as though she has just read a rather pretentious self-help book. A disappointment. - Anna Carey
Feeding the Rat. A.A. Alvarez, Bloomsbury £7.99
Mountaineering and climbing books form a small but perfectly-formed sub-genre of literature, full of gripping tales of heroic feats, narrow escapes and great calamities. Other themes are the recklessness of many climbers who are "less bothered about losing their lives than about losing face", and the dreary reality of high-altitude expeditions, where climbers often have to wait for weeks inside their tents for the weather to clear. Alvarez, the poet and critic, is also an accomplished rock-climber and met many of the sport's leading figures in the 1960s and 1970s. Feeding the Rat is an affectionate biography of his friend, Mo Anthoine, who incarnated the free-spirited, adventure-loving instincts of the period's hippy climbers. The story has dated with the passage of the years - the book was first published in 1988 - but the ending still manages to surprise. - Paul Cullen
Bush at War. Bob Woodward, Pocket Books, £8.99
The author is perhaps best known as one half of the investigative duo who gave us the deserved best seller All the President's Men. Here he concentrates on the hundred days following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, using transcripts from the National Security Council and notes from cabinet meetings, together with hundreds of interviews with those in the presidential inner circle, including four exclusive hours with Bush himself. He provides a largely uncritical account of changing events and, more interestingly, an insight into the powerful personalities of the decision makers. Foremost is Bush himself but almost as interesting is the rivalry between Powell and Rumsfeld, and Powell and Cheney, and their difference over how to deal with Iraq. An exposé of sorts, the book's lack of serious analysis might suggest that's the price one pays for some fascinating inside information. - Owen Dawson
Once More With Feeling. Victoria Cohen and Charlie Skelton, Fourth Estate, £7.99
It's highly unlikely that you've seen the erotic masterpiece that is Dr Reginald Osiris and the Dildo of Krun-Ra, but it probably isn't as entertaining as the book of how two journalists with only a passing knowledge of the porn industry came to make it. This follows Cohen and Skelton's adventure from being asked to watch porn on behalf of Erotic Review to making what they hope will be the greatest in the history of dirty movies. The cover, which is more saucy postcard than hardcore, suggests that it will be little more than a jolly skip through the industry; and much of it is, with the attitude sometimes veering towards flippancy. Yet, thanks to its curious cast of porn actors and occasional philosophising on the human nature that drives the business, Once More With Feeling delivers far more than mere giggling and titillation. - Shane Hegarty
Mr Potter. Jamaica Kincaid, Vintage, £6.99
Like much of Kincaid's fiction this novel is set on the island of Antigua in the Caribbean where she herself was born, and it has a strong autobiographical ring to it. Its beauty lies in the simple, rhythmic prose, and while in its distinctive style ghosts of other writers are present, it remains utterly original.
Mr Potter is a taxi chauffeur, he cannot read or write, he has a line drawn through his birth certificate where is father's name should be, his mother has committed suicide, and he has many "girl children" towards whom he is indifferent. Mr Potter is our narrator's father; this is the story of their relationship, or lack thereof, and the story of Mr Potter's home, his thoughts; his very existence. Kincaid succeeds in bringing her protagonist strikingly to life for the reader, and at the same time, one feels, lays him to rest for herself. - Sophie MacNeice
And Why Not? Memoirs of a Film Lover. Barry Norman, Pocket Books, £7.99
In preparing his autobiography, TV film critic Barry Norman made sure to include that most essential tool - an index. Thus, we can go right to Norman's opinions of Bruce Willis ("a fairly considerable plonker"), Arnold Schwarzenegger ("not my favourite man"), Peter Sellers ("unscrupulous, duplicitous") and Hollywood ("a happy hunting ground for third-rate minds with boundless ambition, impenetrable hides and an unquenchable thirst for money"). He also has plenty of nice or nice-ish things to say about, among others, Richard Burton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diana Rigg, Sylvester Stallone and Charlton Heston, as well as piquant tales of working for the Daily Mail, the BBC and Sky. Norman's is an interesting life story, told with wit and candour by a consummate pro. - Kevin Sweeney