Out now on paperback
Hitler’s Private Library: The Books that Shaped His Life
Timothy W Ryback
Vintage, £9.99
You can tell a lot about people by the books they keep: their tastes, interests and habits. Hitler certainly loved books and amassed 16,000 of them. Of the surviving 1,280 volumes, Ryback selects those that had "either emotional or intellectual significance" for Hitler and which "helped shape his public words and actions". He read largely to confirm his existing prejudices, as is revealed by the marginalia he left behind in some of the hate-filled polemics he perused. He admired Shakespeare enormously, particularly Julius Caesar: the Ides of March he regarded as a time for taking fateful decisions and he threatened opponents that they would meet again at Philippi, as the ghost warned Brutus after Caesar's murder. Shelved alongside the Bard's collected works was a complete set of Karl May's adventure novels. Albert Speer later remarked that Hitler sought comfort in May's novels the way others did in the Bible. This fascinating study offers a chilling insight into the mind that conceived such unspeakable horrors. Brian Maye
The Dead Yard: A Story of Modern Jamaica
Ian Thomson
Faber, £8.99
If The Dead Yard asserts anything, it is that the divisive shadow of colonial rule still looms over Jamaica. Thomson uses Karl Marx's bite, that "Jamaican history is characteristic of the beastliness of the true Englishman", to typify his diagnosis of a nation "fearful of each other", homophobic and haunted by a history of exploitation. Thomson's investigation is vivid, expert, and often beautiful. But it spends too much time at the table of wealthy Jamaicans, where "white Jamaicans still wield huge (if not uncontested) power". At times Thomson is brave, willing to confront the indignation of some of the poorer communities where "nearly every Jamaican knows someone who has been threatened with a gun or a knife – or murdered". But it is short lived, and too much is written in the language of a "visitor [who is] always getting it wrong". JP Watson
Friendly Fire
Alaa Al Aswany
Fourth Estate, £7.99
And We Have Covered Their Eyes is the title of one of the short stories in this collection by the celebrated Egyptian author, but it also sums up the message of the volume as a whole. Friendly Fire comprises a novella and 16 short stories, which together depict a society in which corruption is so insidious that its victims often fail to recognise it. Many of the characters seethe with suppressed or misdirected anger, and the author's disgust and frustration with his country seeps through every word. Al Aswany, a dentist by profession, found success with his novel The Yacoubian Building, and he continues to write lucidly and compellingly about corruption and failure in every facet of Egyptian society. Yet only someone who loved his country could write so scathingly about its flaws, and Al Aswany's great love for Egypt emerges alongside his anger. His energetic writing ensures the volume is powerfully affecting rather than depressing. Eimear Nolan
Becoming Scarlett
Ciara Geraghty
Hachette Ireland, €12.99
Scarlett O'Hara is a wedding planner and borderline OCD case. Her parents are semi-retired thespians, prone to frequent bouts of bad parenting and high melodrama. They live in Wicklow in a house called, you guessed it, Tara. Are you getting the drift? Scarlett, or Scarlah as her latest big client, Sofia, calls her, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, a major kink in her five-year plan. While she's sure about baby Ellen's gender, she's not so sure about the father's identity. It could be her previously dependable ex-boyfriend, John Smith, who inexplicably upped stakes to join an archaeological dig in Brazil, or perhaps bohemian actor/writer Red Butler – oh, yes – who is also Sofia's fiancé. Ellen's premature birth in a carriage pulled by pink horses might or might not make you cry – there are various reasons why the story could have you in tears. Two-dimensional characters notwithstanding, it's a good yarn clothed in a tell-tale pink cover that will help to while away the winter days. Claire Looby
The Artist, The Philosopher and The Warrior
Paul Strathern
Vintage, £9.99
This book focuses on a few months in 1502 when Leonardo, Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia worked together in the latter's military campaign to conquer Romagna. Strathern describes the ruthlessly ambitious Borgia as one who was "as magnetic in his charms as he could be terrifying in his evil". Borgia's downfall occurred barely two years later but out of their encounter grew Machiavelli's The Prince, which described how human beings actually behaved rather than how they ought to behave, yet resulted in its author's name becoming a byword in infamy. Leonardo, who acted as Borgia's military engineer during the campaign, remains the most enigmatic of the three. His journey through the Apennine Mountains with Borgia provided him with the backdrop to the Mona Lisa. He continued to design ingenious military weapons but did not publish them because of the brutalities he had seen Borgia inflict. The fascinating story of the brief collusion of these three famous men is told with craft and brio. Brian Maye
