Winter in Tabriz
Sheila Llewellyn
Sceptre , €17.99
Drawing on the author's personal experience of living in Tabriz through the winter of 1978, during the last months before the revolution in Iran took hold in January 1979, Winter in Tabriz is a gripping and nostalgic story of the struggle for art, love and freedom amid impending oppression and restriction. Telling the stories of Damian and Anna, both from Oxford University, alongside Iranian poet Arash and his older brother Reza, a student and aspiring photo-journalist, the novel captures the complexities and tensions of attempting to choose one's own path, and the vulnerability implicit in investing in love and friendship during such upheaval. Winter in Tabriz is ultimately an elegy to those individuals and relationships that did not survive the revolution, and the wider legacies of such conflicts that are in many ways unresolved, their stories unknown or untold. – Christiana Spens
Around the World in 80 Plants
Jonathan Drori
Laurence King, £20
The stories from "the riotous and often bizarre plant world" have the power to "intertwine science with history and culture" and that's exactly what Jonathan Drori does in this world-tour cornucopia of growing things. His scientific knowledge of plants is extensive but he wears it lightly as he writes passionately about intoxicants such as absinthe and cannabis, flavourings such as the misunderstood vanilla, and the imaginative and constant search for aphrodisiacs. If you think you know about the humble potato (Drori's paragraph on our Great Famine is admirably balanced) or tomato or nettle or dandelion, you'll learn still more here, while also learning about exotica such as mandrake and carnivorous plants. The book is beautifully illustrated and a must for anyone interested in the world around them. – Brian Maye
How to Kidnap the Rich
Rahul Raina
Little, Brown
Raina's debut novel, a satire of modern India, is a veritable sensory experience. The reader is transported to the streets of Modern Delhi; a world of fragrant chai, honking car horns, bustling bodies, pizza and Paco Rabanne. Raina's prose is cutting, feverishly witty and infused with the vernacular of modern India. No less enticing than the telling of the tale is the tale itself; the enterprising son of a chai seller sets himself up as an "examinations consultant" – ie wealthy middle-class parents pay him to sit their children's final school examinations. When he accidentally scores the highest mark in the country for one pupil, both find themselves propelled to stardom, overtaken by greed, and caught in a farcical misadventure of kidnapping, double kidnapping and reverse kidnapping! – Brigid O'Dea
The Prosecutor
Nazir Afzal
Ebury Press, £9.99
Born to immigrant Pakistani parents in Birmingham, Nazir Afzal experienced racism early. As his father dressed his wounds from a brutal assault on his way home from school, he said he wanted to report his assailants to the police, that he wanted justice, to which his father replied: "There is no justice." This set him on a course to study law and to join the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), eventually becoming chief crown prosecutor. He prosecuted many high-profile cases, especially involving domestic violence, child sexual abuse and so-called "honour killings". A standout case was the successful prosecution of the Rochdale sex-grooming gang (the CPS had decided not to prosecute but he got the decision overturned). A powerful story of a brave, determined man's pursuit of justice for the voiceless. – Brian Maye
An Extra Pair of Hands: A story of Caring, Ageing and Everyday Acts of Love
Kate Mosse
Profile Books/Welcome Collection, €17.99
Mosse tells us her book is "not a 'how to' book for the 8.8 million adults in the UK who find themselves carers, nor a social analysis of the structures and inequalities in UK care system". It is a personal account of the author's experience of living with, and sharing in the care of her elderly parents and mother-in-law. Moss explores the grief, guilt, and loss of independence that are often party to both the ageing and caring experience. She provides an insight into the tedium of hours spent in hospital waiting rooms, the ever-present responsibility, and the planning, replanning and unplanning, that make up the caring experience. But more than anything, this book is a celebration of the companionship Mosse enjoyed in being an "extra pair of hands" for three people she dearly loved. – Brigid O'Dea
Voices from the Irish Free State
Eoin & Niamh Ó Dochartaigh (Eds)
Ardcrú Books, €20
Journalist WG FitzGerald (older brother of Desmond) compiled and published The Voice of Ireland in 1924 to mark the Free State's founding. A selection of pieces from that book are presented here. Greatly enhanced by profiles of the contributors and a wide collection of photographs, they offer a valuable and fascinating insight into when independent Ireland was undergoing its birth pangs. All the main movements (GAA, Irish-language and Anglo-Irish literary, Sinn Féin, Irish Volunteers) and events (1916, partition, Anglo-Irish Treaty, Civil War) feature, with contributions from leading lights such as Griffith, Collins, de Valera, Yeats, Hyde and MacNéill. Karl Spindler on the Aud's abortive expedition, Lloyd George on why the British signed the treaty and a section on "the political influence of women" are among less-expected but nonetheless welcome perspectives. – Brian Maye
