PAPERBACKS:The dehumanising effects of the Vietnam war, life between the world wars, a history of slave ships, China's terracotta army, love in 80s Dublin and a political love triangle.
Tree of Smoke,Denis Johnson, Picador, £8.99
Winner of last year's National Book Award in the US, this epic, unforgiving Vietnam novel sprawls across 20 years of dismal history, chasing the shadow of the elusive, tunnel-obsessed Colonel Sands, an archetypal maverick who refuses to accept the failure of his nation's anti-communist mission. Along the way, the Colonel's grim band of ruinously zealous henchmen lose their innocence, their sanity, often their lives and whatever is left of their souls in a series of sometimes incomprehensible operations in south-east Asia. While the hard-bitten intensity of Johnson's writing never falters, and the ideas and sense of place are impressive, it's a long march to the book's strong closing sections when the war has finally receded and the main characters face the consequences of the devastation they have wreaked. Giles Newington
Winnie and Wolf,AN Wilson, Arrow, £8.99
What if Adolf Hitler had had a daughter, the result of an affair with Richard Wagner's daughter-in-law, Winnie? This eventuality forms the central premise of AN Wilson's latest novel, written in the form of a confession by the child's adoptive father, a former member of the composer's Bayreuth household during the 1920s and 30s. What follows is a fictionalised account of life in inter-war Germany that touches on everything from Nietzschean philosophy to the difficulty of staging an opera festival, from Hitler's rise to power to the horrors of Kristallnacht. For all its ambition in terms of style and subject matter, though, this is a work that never quite manages to turn artifice into convincing art. Freya McClements
The Slave Ship: A Human History, Marcus Rediker, John Murray, £9.99
This is an exhaustive history of the traffic of human cargo which took place between the late 15th and late 19th centuries. Descriptions of confinement, kidnapping, brutal conditions, rebellions and fierce physical punishment stand alongside enumerations of the changing attitudes towards the slave trade throughout the centuries. The practice is observed from all angles, and accounts from plantation owners, captains, crew members, abolitionists and slaves are all included. Rediker uses a method of summarising and combining historical documents to describe every aspect connected with "the most magnificent drama in the last thousand years of human history". As a result the book reads like a collection of published lecture notes and will be more appealing to scholars than those with a casual interest. Colm Farren
The Terracotta Army,John Man, Bantam £8.99
China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di, was guarded in his tomb by his 8,000 hand-crafted terracotta warriors, from his death in 210 BC to 1974, when farmers, digging a well, stumbled upon the site. Man investigates the history of the Qin Empire with its wars, palace intrigues and treachery. He alternates his racy historical account with his practical and detailed investigations into the construction of the Terracotta Army.The author concludes by hoping the Chinese authorities will continue the huge task of excavation and provide the emperor with immortality of a different sort, "in the light of day and the eyes of the world". Tom Moriarty
Forever Friends, Kate McCabe, Poolbeg. €17.99
We're post Celtic Tiger now with a vengence but here's a novel depicting life in Dublin as the economy moved towards the boom. In this tale of female friendships, young heroine Maddy Pritchard finds herself working in a southside auctioneering business when she meets and falls in love with a wealthy businessman. The book begins at Maddy's 50th birthday celebrations, but jumps back in time to the heady days of the 1980s when she was just starting out in life. The fast moving atmosphere of the property world is the backdrop and, though this is a disappointingly obvious read, there is a certain curiosity attached to reading about that vanished era. Briege McAtee
Snow White Turtle Doves, Juliet Bressan, Poolbeg Press, €10.99
Set against the backdrop of preparations for US President George W Bush's visit to Ireland in 2004, a love triangle unfolds. Political activist Harry's desire for both actress Isabella and doctor Sinéad causes him surprisingly little conflict, while global matters dominate his attention. Bressan deals confidently with ethical matters but the love story gets buffeted around a bit without the kind of firm foundation given to the more serious matters.
However it is used well to highlight the depths of emotional tension to be found in a relationship, in this modern parable about the darker side of passion. Claire Looby