A selection of paperbacks reviewed
Matters of Life and Death
Bernard MacLaverty
Vintage, £7.99
"Anybody'd've done the same", declares the narrator of On The Roundabout following his rescue of a hitchhiker from a UDA beating. In reality it is such uncommon incidents that provide the subject matter for Belfast-born MacLaverty's latest collection of short stories. From the tale of a Republican who uses his furniture business to score "One up for old Ireland", to that of an RUC man who targets his Catholic neighbour for assassination, these are dark - and often darkly comic - snapshots of Belfast life during the Troubles. In a world in which violence has become the norm, MacLaverty's characters are damaged individuals - often scarred by the loss of someone close - and his skill is to use such intensely personal tragedies to explore the political miasma that has produced them, and to tell those stories with humanity and insight.
Freya McClements
Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Colour of Disaster
Michael Eric Dyson
Perseus Books Group, £8.99
We despaired as images of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath first swamped our consciousness. We felt the desperate anguish of black refugees stewing in the Superdome and the Convention Centre, abandoned by Bush-whacked America. Outside, we heard shocking tales from breathless reporters wallowing in murky street waters, as bloated bodies floated conveniently by. "There's mass murder in the 'Dome! Black gangs raping stranded tourists room by room in hotels!" Shocking, but untrue, as it turned out. They just didn't check, as they slipped semi-consciously into old stereotypes of black barbarism that oozed all too easily from the bayous of collective folk memory, where still live the accounts of fearful French planters fresh from Haiti and the retribution of a victorious black army two centuries ago. Dyson describes Katrina from the black perspective, and does all who love New Orleans a great service.
John Moran
The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History
Jonathan Franzen
Harper Perennial, £8.99
Jonathan Franzen, author of the bestseller The Corrections, has surpassed himself with this quirky, personal and irreverent memoir, which is gleefully self-indulgent in its scope and focus. Here Franzen outlines his thoughts on his pet subjects with passion. From his original (and contentious) take on the characters of the Peanuts comics, to his obsessive bird watching, we see how a painfully self-aware teenager grew into a keen observer. Franzen recalls a time when Christian youth groups were cool, mothers were feared and hippie older brothers admired above all else. A collection of the essays he always wanted to write and a hilarious take on growing up suburban in 1970s America, The Discomfort Zone is an astute and honest book.
Nora Mahony
Adam Smith and the Pursuit of Perfect Liberty
James Buchan
Profile Books, £7.99
In 1707, economic necessity forced a backward and deeply divided Scotland into joining with England in the Act of Union. Yet, within decades, the Scottish Enlightenment, whose members included the political economist Adam Smith, would play a major role in the development of ideas in morals, religion, politics and economics. In 1776, Smith published his treatise An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Its rationales on the division of labour, the market economy and liberal capitalism found immediate favour and have informed economic thinking ever since. James Buchan's concise biography - just 150 pages - serves splendidly as an introduction to a towering genius and the most accomplished period in Scottish history, combining Smith's writings with the leading events of his life.
Martin Noonan
How Language Works
David Crystal
Penguin, 500pp. £9.99
Should you need to understand something about the physiology and pathology of language start with this. As well as printed information, the book comes replete with anatomical diagrams of the brain, the eye, the ear, and charts of earlier languages - including Sumerian pictograms and Egyptian hieroglyphs. It will be useful for the therapist, the practitioner of language and for the curious person who enjoys words and likes penetrating the origins and properties of language - including sign languages. All 73 chapters are relentlessly entitled "How To", and the textbook-style organisation, with ideas and statements followed by examples, is helpful. While How Language Works deserves shelf-space beside dictionaries, a Thesaurus and Fowler and Truss on usage, it is more a diagnostic tool than a work of reference.
Kate Bateman
Falling Through the Earth
Danielle Trussoni
Picador, 354pp. £7.99
Wisconsin writer Danielle Trussoni did not visit Vietnam until she was in her 20s, yet the south-east Asian nation had shaped her life from childhood. Her father's experiences during the Vietnam War haunted him, casting a long shadow over his family life back in the States. Long after the war's end, conflict raged on in the deeply dysfunctional Trussoni household, leading various members to divorce, alcoholism and delinquency. Trussoni weaves her memoir of a damaged childhood with the story of one soldier's horrific experiences as a "tunnel rat", regularly forced to choose between murder or death. Some of the best passages recount her visit to Vietnam, where she re-traces her father's steps in an attempt to understand him. Trussoni writes with coolness and restraint, though never fails to engage the reader. Rather, her understated style makes the psychological consequences of war all the more apparent.
Denis Clifford