The Irish Times reviews a selection of paperbacks
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger Vintage £6.99
You'll have to suspend more disbelief than usual to enjoy this book. Niffenegger's hero, Henry, suffers from a genetic condition called Chrono Displacement Disorder, which means he can be suddenly pulled from the present into his past or his future. Thus he first meets his wife, Clare, when she is a little girl, but when they meet as adults and fall in love, he has no recollection of their previous meetings. It makes for a complex, confusing, structure; the action - and Henry - richochets back and forth from 1968 to 2008 and lots of points in between, and the narrative is shared between Henry and Clare. It's a lot of chopping and changing but Niffenegger handles it so expertly that you feel safe enough to roll with it. In essence it's a pretty traditional romance but one whose outlandish premise, skilfully realised, gives it an agreeably wonky dimension. - Cathy Dillon
Ice Road by Gillian Slovo Virago, £7.99
Against the enormous canvas of political and social life in Leningrad between Stalin's purges and the 1943 German blockade of that frozen city, three interlocking stories are played out. With the assassination of Kirov, which kick-starts an open season of purges, we become immersed in Natasha's story. Her father adroitly maintains influence; her first husband, honest, proletarian Kolya, "disappears"; her second husband, a cold apparatchik, is killed at the front but not before he foils her love affair with American businessman Jack Brandon. Anton Antonovich, a bachelor, scholar-historian, adopts an orphan girl, Anya, and fabricates history in order to become a good comrade. All the characters become known to, and sometimes reliant on, carer and cleaner Irina, who is invited on an artic expedition. This is a hefty novel in the manner of Dr Zhivago or Anna Karenina - not a fast read but a very rewarding one. - Kate Bateman
Collected Stories by Carol Shields Harper Perennial, £9.99
Carol Shields (1935-2003) embodied a strange descriptive paradox; though her talent was hailed as vast, her sphere of literary influence great, and her turnout prodigious, her work was best described in terms of the very small. Life under the microscope, the non-event, the small things remembered that others forgot - Shields had a delicate touch for observing even the most miniscule vulnerability in people. Born in the US, she moved to Canada with her husband, and became a citizen. She preferred the understated quality of writing in Canada, a country with a short literary tradition and few heroes. In this sense, her collected short stories form a perfect introduction or reintroduction to Shields's world of the small but not insignificant, for they are brief and unadorned. Her stories bespeak a quiet wisdom and an empathetic take on modern life and relationships. - Nora Mahony
Remember Me by Trezza Azzopardi Picador, £7.99
For those who wonder how the firmament of society cracks open to allow the unfortunate (in increasing numbers) to fall through, this book poses an interesting speculation. Winnie, an indigent, somewhat bewildered bag lady, whose beautiful, tell-tale red curls remain hidden, matted and filthy under a wig "from a Russian virgin's head", steers the reader fitfully through a sad and picaresque life. A simple child with a talent for the otherworldly, she passes from family to family until her talents find a home with someone who can turn them into cash. In her 70s, a theft compels her to reclaim not only her stolen treasure but also the confused collage of her story. Azzopardi's second novel sensitively, in snatches of evocative detail, presents us with a portrait of a woman who lived almost as a guest in her own life. - Christine Madden
Chaucer by Peter Ackroyd Vintage £7.99
Ackroyd here chooses as his subject the ironic, distant poet/narrator of The Canterbury Tales; filling in the gaps of an eventful life in 14th-century England. Through the various official records which still survive, Chaucer is revealed not just as a poet, but also an eminent civil servant. He was at various stages a customs official, royal diplomat and a King's clerk. Ackroyd portrays him as a loyal servant to three kings, who was in his time captured in battle and held for ransom and in later life accused of rape. However, the account of his diplomatic missions to Italy is the most satisfying as it was here he came into contact with the works of Dante and Boccacio, the former inspiring his use of the vernacular, the latter providing the premise for his Canterbury Tales. A well-rounded depiction of arguably the most important writer in the English language. - Tom Cooney
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 2001 by Steve Coll Penguin Books, £9.99
Word has it that USA spy tracking systems are so sophisticated they can tell the condition of a head of corn in any given field. If this is so, how come the CIA could not accurately forecast the rising threat of terrorism leading to 9/11? One surprising answer is the CIA had inadequate resources and intelligence to appreciate the emerging power of the Taliban. Pulitzer Prize-winner Steve Coll starts with the secret history of the CIA's role in Afghanistan and takes us through to the emergence of Islamist radicalism and bin Laden. His book is packed with detail, a complex study of intelligence operations and the often poisonous, mistrustful relations between the CIA and foreign intelligence services. This tale has few heroes but many villains. - Owen Dawson