The latest releases reviewed.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
Paul Torday
Phoenix, £7.99
If you missed Salmon Fishing in the Yemen when it was first published, you should know that it is indeed a book to be judged by its cover - and title. A serious-minded fisheries scientist thinks he might have to walk away from his career rather than get involved with a daft government-backed scheme to beat them all: taking Atlantic salmon to the wadis of the Yemen to please a rich Caledoniaphile sheik and provide a good photo-op in the Middle East for the PM. Eventually, the good scientist finds his life lacks meaning and adventure. Soon, he is flying around the world to learn about holding tanks, cooling systems and how to trick fish into adapting to desert life, while dodging his increasingly enraged wife, a sycophantic spin-doctor and a back-slapping boss. Utterly charming and extremely funny, Paul Torday's debut is a warm, middle-aged picaresque that is oddly convincing. Nora Mahony
How to Read a Novel
John Sutherland
Profile Books, £7.99
So many novels, so little time - this is the dilemma examined by John Sutherland in his humorous and informative look at how and what we read. Faced with a deluge of new books hitting the shelves each week - estimated at up to 10,000 a year - Sutherland explores how being "well-read" these days is no easy task. Touching on everything from the origins of the novel to whether reviews really matter, the advent of digital books to the age-old quandary of books made into films, How to Read a Novel offers new insights into the literary past and the changing trends of the present. For those pondering what to read next - should you go back to the classics? Read all the Man Booker winners? Buy hardback or paperback? - Sutherland offers some helpful short cuts, the best being the Marshall McLuhan test for choosing a book: turn to page 69 and read it. If you like it, buy it. Sorcha Hamilton
Iron Kingdom: the Rise and
Downfall of Prussia
Christopher Clark
Penguin, £12.99
The victorious Allies abolished Prussia in February 1947, judging it the "source of the German malaise that had afflicted Europe". How fair was this judgment? The question that historians of Prussia have tended to address is: which was the real Prussia - militaristic, expansionist, arrogant and illiberal, or incorruptible, tolerant, highly educated and efficient? The problem with this emphasis on "binary ethical categories" is that it compresses Prussia's history "into a national teleology of German guilt". The book argues that Prussia was a European state long before it became a German one and Germany was not Prussia's fulfilment but its undoing. The portraits of some of the leaders, from Frederick the Great to Bismarck, could not be bettered for concision, insight and assessment, and this comprehensive narrative of more than three centuries of Prussian history is lively, eloquent and lightened by touches of humour. Brian Maye
The Lost Men: The Harrowing Story of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party
Kelly Tyler-Lewis
Bloomsbury, £8.99
Behind nearly every Antarctic exploration is a story of heroism, but few can rival the exploits of the Ross Sea Party team. As Ernest Shackleton sailed into the Weddell Sea aboard the Endurance, intending to make the first crossing of the Antarctic, the Aurora sailed into the opposite Antarctic coast, with the aim of creating a vital lifeline of food and equipment depots for the Shackleton crew. Disaster struck and 10 of the crew found themselves stranded on the desolate continent with little more than scavenged equipment after the Aurora broke its moorings and was washed out to sea with pack ice. The team decided to carry on in the face of glacial odds, and their story is one of heroism and tenacity that defies belief. Beautifully told and exhaustively researched, this book is a fine testament to their Herculean efforts. Laurence Mackin
The Hoax
Clifford Irving
Corgi, £7.99
It was to be the literary coup of the century. Executives at McGraw Hill publishers went through the evidence with a fine-tooth comb - handwriting experts even verified letters from reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes to pulp novelist Clifford Irving giving permission to write his life story. It seemed too good to be true. And it was. Irving and his associate, Richard Suskind, had talked their way into the archives of magazines, newspapers, even the Pentagon, to research the life of a man they had never met. The scheme was a testament to Irving's hubris. Hughes's biography was never published and Irving, his wife Edith and Suskind received jail sentences for their part in the scam. This book, recently made into a film of the same name, is heavy on detail, with all the deals and double-crosses you could ask of a spy novel. Claire Looby
The Riddle of the Sands
Erskine Childers
Penguin, £7.99
Penguin Classics has brought out a sequence of swashbuckling and adventure tales lately, among them Erskine Childers's The Riddle of the Sands. Written in 1903, it is a very British, Boy's Own tale of derring-do, set on board the yacht Dulcibella. The hero, Carruthers, is asked by his friend Davies to go duck shooting with him in the Baltic. However, he soon discovers that there is a much different reason for the trip, and that the safety of Britain depends on it. The Germans are the villains as they assemble a fleet of warships with the idea of invading Britain. The book may seem old-fashioned but it still manages to entertain. Other thriller titles in the series are The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan, and The Man Who Was Thursday, by GK Chesterton. Vincent Banville