This week's paperbacks
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel
Fourth Estate, £8.99
This large, rich novel re-imagines the life of Thomas Cromwell, son of a brutal blacksmith, until he becomes, in 1534, Master Secretary to Henry V111. (Years later Cromwell was ennobled as Earl of Essex; a sequel, perhaps?) His life's work was to manage and endorse England's radical change from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism's new rules of governance and procedure in Tudor England. Hilary Mantel convincingly fashions Cromwell as a successful merchant-exporter, a negotiator, a man of discrimination, decency, charm and action, though we never learn his real principles, or if he has any. His household is large and complex; it includes in-laws and children – and, like most of us in the conduct of our affairs, he is fair-minded-up-to-a-point. His qualms are few and his nerve steady as he expedites the demise of Thomas More and Cardinal Wolsley, two powerful casualties of the Henry-Boleyn courtship. More is depicted as conniving and tendentious; Cromwell's long-time patron, Wolsley, is disgraced for failing to secure Rome's annulment. A Man Booker-winning book for many seasons. Kate Batemaan
A Pint of Plain
Bill Barich
Bloomsbury, £8.99
People can't seem to get enough of Irish pubs, as I noticed recently in Malaga, where the locals flocked to the wooden, smoky overpriced dens to watch Barcelona versus Real Madrid on the telly. But "authenticity cannot be reproduced", as Bill Barich says, in a rare philosophical moment, quoting Walter Benjamin. Barich chronicles how the Irish Pub Company has designed the template for establishing a Guinness-swilling emporium, far from the native sod. Barich, in contrast, sets out to find the genuine article, a real old Dublin boozer. He wants fluent talk, efficient curates behind the bar and, ideally, some Irish music played from the heart and not for the tourists. After a lengthy, and occasionally pedantic search, he finds his heart's desire in the Cobblestone in Dublin's Smithfield (for the music), in tiny MD Hickey's of Clonaslee, Co Laois (for the talk) and in the wonderful Gravedigger's beside Glasnevin cemetery where a pint and a cheese sandwich can seem like very heaven. Tom Moriarty
Rebel Land: Among Turkey’s Forgotten Peoples
Christopher de Bellaigue
Bloomsbury, £8.99
Setting off for the small, seemingly inconsequential town of Varto in southeast Turkey, journalist de Bellaigue begins an attempt to find the human consequences of the bitter ethnic conflicts that have ravaged the region for aeons. In so doing, he hopes to unravel the truth of the more controversial aspects of Turkish history, but instead finds it nigh-on impossible – almost everyone he speaks to lies, airing spurious opinion and, often, demonstrable fiction as if it were incontrovertible fact. Nonetheless, over the course of his personal travails, de Bellaigue does manage to examine the rise and fall, success and misfortune of eastern Turkey's beleaguered Armenian, Kurdish and Alevi communities. Explored are the terrible atrocities that have been suffered by them and, indeed, perpetrated in their name against others, as is the historical treatment by the Turkish state of its ethnic minorities. De Bellaigue's often-amusing turn of phrase provides a welcome relief from what is a murky and depressing, albeit gripping, account. A taut eye-opener. Sebastian Clare
Ghosts and Lightning
Trevor Byrne
Cannongate, £7.99
Ghosts and Lightningis the debut novel from Clondalkin writer Trevor Byrne who, through his surrogate narrator, Denny, wraps his own experiences of the language and people of west Dublin around a poignant and darkly comic narrative. Each bizarre episode in the book is treated with warmth and humour by Byrne, who offers us a portrait of his hometown that never strays too far into either farce or despair. While the antics of Pajo, Maggit and the rest of Denny's motley crew of unemployables are often hilarious (an attempted seance and the interruption of a children's birthday party with a stolen Playstation are priceless moments), the narrator's world is also one of grim realities in dark corners and melancholy for a life not lived. Byrne is undoubtedly a powerful new talent. Dan Sheehan
The Idle Parent
Tom Hodgkinson
Penguin, £8.99
In this enthralling and rousing work of quotidian philosophy, Tom Hodgkinson applies his Idlervalues to the process of child-rearing. The idle parent, rather than moulding their child from birth in an attempt to secure its future, enjoys the present and lets the child learn through its own instincts for play and exploration. The Zen-like message is that parent and child alike should enjoy themselves harmoniously and not interfere in each other's lives unnecessarily, and Hogkinson emphasises the inventive and independent natures of children who are left to their own devices. He fulminates against the "commodification of play" and advertisements aimed at children, and despairs of an education system that makes learning a chore. He reads as more of a lively country eccentric than an anarchist, and while he quotes Locke, Rousseau, Confucius and the Third Patriarch of Zen to edifying effect, he doesn't stray into abstract theorising, keeping his thesis grounded with humour and disarming accounts of his own fallibility. Colm Farren
