A selection of paperbacks reviewed
Creatures of the Earth John McGahern Faber, £9.99
This revised selection of the Collected Stories (1992) includes two previously unpublished stories as well as a characteristically astute preface, written weeks before his death. In it, McGahern stresses that fiction always has to be believable. "Life does not have to suffer such constraint, and much of what takes place is believable only because it happens." Few writers kept as shrewd an eye and ear to what happened to and around them. This is a valuable book gathering powerful narratives such as his masterpiece, The Country Funeral, in which memories divide the three Ryan brothers driving down from Dublin for the funeral of the uncle whose resentful presence dominated their school holidays on the family farm. Precision timing, black humour and a remorseless grasp of human nature were McGahern's strengths. They served him well. - Eileen Battersby
A Secret History of the IRA Ed Moloney Penguin, £10.99
This new edition of Ed Moloney's terrific study of the IRA contains new chapters and new appendices, and it brings the Provisionals' story virtually up to the present day. With the IRA formally ending its campaign in 2005, and subsequently completing the arms decommissioning process, Moloney argues that it is now "possible to say that the Troubles have ended". The last instalments of this tale include the Northern Bank robbery, the killing of Robert McCartney in Belfast, and the revelations regarding Freddie Scappaticci and Denis Donaldson. Some will feel that in focusing on Gerry Adams, Moloney presents an account that is too much based around one figure. And the book is better at documenting what people did than at explaining why they did it. But it remains a vital and very impressive treatment of a hugely important subject. - Richard English
In the Blood Andrew Motion Faber, £9.99
This beautifully written memoir by the British poet laureate opens in tragedy. When Motion was 17, his mother fell from her horse while out hunting. This resulted in the head injury that left her in a coma for nine years - we return to this event in the final pages, with the intermediate chapters detailing events of the poet's youth and family history. Motion appears to have led a singularly English, moneyed Home Counties childhood - unhappy prep school days; shooting in Scotland; fishing in Ireland; his nascent interest in poetry at public school fostered by an enlightened teacher. The events are unremarkable: the memoir gains its power from the sensuousness of language and description which captures the period with Wordsworthian recall. - Jago Tennant
Wish I Was Here Jackie Kay Picador, £7.99
"It's not the fact that we are splitting up that is really worrying me, it is the fact that she keeps quoting Martin Amis." With this memorable opening, Glaswegian author Jackie Kay begins her unconventional exploration of love amongst predominantly same-sex couples. From a jilted lover who deliberately holidays alongside her former partner to a divorced father driven to extremes by loss of access to his children, the tales in Kay's latest short story collection challenge as much as entertain. The author consistently questions society's prejudices about homosexuality - two middle-aged climbers find love in each other's arms, and during a night-time train journey a character asks: "Are you surprised . . . I am this very pretty woman, and here this great love of mine is also a woman?". Kay's call for tolerance and humanity carries a universal relevance. This is a quirky yet poignant meditation on the loss of love and on the complications of relationships. - Freya McClements
Mark Twain: A Life Ron Powers Pocket Books, £9.99
Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain would very likely be equally pleased with this Life - it is robust, subtle, comprehensive and written with more than a dash of colloquial immediacy blended with the plain language of information and narration.The author is driven to show that the coarse, ribald Clemens challenged or at the least provided a deep bass, counter voice to the great American mandarins - Emerson, Beecher-Stowe, Hawthorne, Longfellow et al. Life was never placid even when Clemens married and became somewhat domesticated, but having a room and a place of his own allowed him write, not just copy for newspapers and lectures, but to become Mark Twain, renowned author of wonderful books, among them The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and one of the greats of American letters. - Kate Bateman
John Betjeman: the Biography Bevis Hillier John Murray, £9.99
Originally in three volumes and the fruit of 25 years' labour, Betjeman's authorised biography is now abridged into one volume, what Hillier calls "this manageable deckchair book". Its clear and unobtrusive style certainly makes pleasant reading. It is the story of the life rather than an analysis of the poetry but the poetry provides valuable biographical insights. Betjeman was an only child, often lonely, who treated his teddy bear, Archibald, as a surrogate brother. His difficult relationship with his parents reverberates in the poetry. From an early age he developed the ability to make people laugh as a shield for his shyness. He was sent to Dublin in 1941 as press attaché to the British minister as it was thought he was "the sort of chap who could get on with the Irish", which he certainly could. Hillier's contention that Betjeman's "skill in conveying places' character is hardly surpassed in English literature" is hard to dispute. - Brian Maye