PureAndrew Miller Sceptre, £8.99
Paris, 1785. A graveyard stuffed with bodies, including those of people who died in successive outbreaks of plague, has begun to leak unspeakable emissions into the surrounding streets. A young provincial engineer is brought in to dig the whole thing up and transfer its revolting contents to a new location. Out of this improbable historical yuck, Andrew Miller has crafted a work of impressive grace and fluidity, one of the new breed of historical novels (like Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Richard Flanagan's Wanting) that don't focus unduly on the accurate reconstruction of a particular period but are all about being there and feeling it. Pure is a real page-turner, so it's no surprise that it made off with the 2011 Costa Book of the Year award – but Miller's gift for the weird, the poetic and the elusive adds an unstructured, dreamlike quality that is really quite special. Once you've read his paragraph about the elephant in the grounds of Versailles, I defy you to get the image out of your head. Arminta Wallace
The Living Mountain
Nan Shepherd
Canongate, £10
The Cairngorm Mountains, in northeast Scotland, are Britain's Arctic. Lashed by vicious winds in winter, this area of spectacular beauty sees lingering snow even at the height of summer. Nan Shepherd's classic celebration, based on a long lifetime's exploration of the region, pays homage to its magnificence. Great nature writing has a rare poetry, and Shepherd, who was born in 1893 and was among the first women to attend university, summons it up. She sees the grandeur in these mountains and the many dangers, and notes the victims, who include crashed pilots as well as lost climbers. She discovers the flora and the racing streams, thrills at the warring stags, and watches the Northern Lights illuminate the heavens. The author of three modernist novels, Shepherd wrote this remarkable narrative during the second World War, but it did not find a publisher until 1977, four years before her death. Few love songs are as sweet and as seductive as this passionate celebration of place. Eileen Battersby
How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog
Chad Orzel
Basic Books, $16.99
Before too long the reader realises that (s)he is the dog, having ears scratched and belly rubbed while trying to grasp the finer points of Einstein's theories. This patronising approach works by diluting the author's learned (but nonmathematical) dissertations for easier absorption by the nonphysicist. There is much to absorb: the special and general theories of relativity, particle physics and, of course, black holes. Orzel's exposition of the speed of light as nature's speed limit and his account of subatomic particle physics are particularly clear and earn barks of gratitude. Orzel admits to a frustration among his fellow theoretical physicists: is the mind-boggling string theory the true way forward? Will the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics ever be unified? Can we find the elusive Higgs boson in the Large Hadron Collider? But, being physicists and not dogs, they will continue, as Einstein did so dramatically, to explore the outer boundaries of our understanding of the material universe. Tom Moriarty
Saharan Journey
Sven Lindqvist
Granta, £9.99
This book brings together two previously published classics by Lindqvist, Desert Divers and Exterminate All the Brutes. "Beneath the surface, panic is always trembling" – a phrase describing one of the Swedish author's recurring nightmares – gives a clue to the richness of his exploring. His work is more a diving into the murky depths of colonialism in the Sahara than a conventional travel narrative. His second journey, ostensibly taking him deep into Algeria and Niger, is global and timeless in its reach as it meditates on the proneness of civilised humans to exterminate peoples perceived as alien and savage. His writing is dense, polemical and shocking but meticulously researched. Lindqvist travels armed internally with historical documents and works by a host of authors, such as Joseph Conrad and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who have preceded him. Other special subjects of the author, gym culture and the history of bombing, add further depth to his tales. A harrowing and riveting read. Jack Hanna
Threaten to Win
Brian O’Connor
Poolbeg, €9.99
Narrator Lorcan Donovan is a former jockey whose wife is having an affair. He works for Jake Weinberger, who is "American East Coast royalty" and one of the world's top racehorse owners. They have a horse likely to win the Epsom Derby, but Donovan discovers that its jockey, Mike Clancy, is in the pocket of a brutal gangster, Pinkie Duggan, and will stop the horse winning as he did in the 2,000 Guineas. Donovan confronts Clancy, and the upshot is that his wife is kidnapped and his employer driven to try to take his own life. Faced with such evil, Donovan fights back. He rescues his wife, but can he prevent the egregious Duggan having his way? Brian O'Connor, an Irish Times writer, knows the racing world inside out, and he writes with ease and verve. A variety of characters and lively dialogue accompany some worrying asides on the current political scene. If the horse-racing thriller is your thing, this is definitely one for you. Brian Maye
