FOOD is the new porn as far as Anthony Bourdain is concerned. And he likes a good meal. He's executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in New York and but also a sharp, witty writer and TV pundit intent on exploring the world in pursuit of culinary exotica. It's possibly a recipe for indigestion, such as eating a cobra's heart while it is still beating and then washing it down with its own blood and bile, or supping on a soft-boiled duck embryo for breakfast. It gets worse not better with gangsters in Russi
The CEO of the Sofa By P.J. O'Rourke Picador, £7.99 sterling
The inherent weakness of writing humour about current events is just how quickly those events become less-than-current and the writing correspondingly less-than-humorous. Much of the beginning of this collection is taken up with everyone's (well, some people's) favourite pseudo-right-wing curmudgeon firing both barrels at Bill Clinton. Bill who? And even by the close 9/11 is a month away. Still, O'Rourke remains sharp and sometimes very funny (and George W. gets almost as much flak as Hillary C.), and the more timeless pieces, such as the closing A Call for Belief Control, in which he argues that religions should be regulated in the same manner as guns are (or aren't), stand up well. But P.J.: Jimmy Carter? It was a long time ago. Get over it.
Joe CulleyGaudíGijs Van Hensbergen Harper Collins, £9.99
Describe a man that's well-dressed, fiery-tempered, Catholic, vegetarian and chaste, and he'd be unbelievable as a character in even the most far-fetched novel. But, according to Gijs van Hensbergen, these paradoxes don't even begin to explain Antoni Gaudí, a man who related more to glass and metal than people. Born into a family of blacksmiths in the Catalonian countryside, Gaudí evolved from an idealistic youth into an antiliberal, flippant, and pessimistic visionary who changed the face of Barcelona. Although the architect's life has long been drenched with myth - did he really keep the blueprints for Casa Mila crumbled in his pocket? - van Hensbergen sifts expertly through what might have happened to find the facts. Gaudí presents a world where buildings have personalities and devoutness to the Catalan culture is second only to devoutness to God. At times bogged down in architectural details, the biography tightly ties Barcelona's turn-of-the-century political struggles with Gaudí's fight for artistic independence.
- Christine Houde
Oxford Good Fiction Guide Edited by Jane Rogers, Oxford, £9.99
If you've ever stood among the endless shelves in Hodges Figgis and felt paralysed by choice, this will be well worth the investment. In two parts, it covers both modern and classic fiction as well as some autobiography and translated fiction. The first part contains essays by various luminaries on 34 different genres or subjects, including Val McDermid on the thriller, Lesley Glaister on short stories and Patricia Craig on Ireland (though, oddly, the latter mentions nothing written after 1996 - no Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, no Jamie O'Neill). It's not all High Fiction either - in 'Glamour', for example, Kate Saunders traces a thread from Shirley Conran to Helen Fielding. Most usefully, each essayist tips his or her top 12 books in the genre. Part two has lively, alphabetically arranged entries for over 1,100 authors from Austen to Grisham, Cervantes to Trevor, giving an overview of each writer's work and recommending which of their books to begin with. It's doubtful any guide to fiction could be exhaustive, but this is as good as you'll get and should make choosing books a lot easier.
- Cathy Dillon
After the Plague T.C. Boyle Bloomsbury, £6.99
T.C. Boyle's punchy short stories have made the American author an acknowledged master of the genre. His darkly comic scenarios range from the bitter acrimony among three survivors of an apocalyptic plague that has wiped out life on the planet in the superb title storey, to the zombie-like protestors outside the abortion clinic in suburban Cleveland ('Killing Babies'). It's as if he has let his imagination loose on the cheesy, often unlikely but always mesmerising headlines in supermarket tabloids. A berserk passenger on an airplane is stopped in his tracks by a woman passenger wielding a fork ('Friendly Skies'), women go on the hunt for available men in Alaska ('Termination Dust'), and in 'Peep Hall', a cyber porn fanatic lives in a house rigged with cameras to provide content 24 Internet access. Boyle's take on the dark side of human nature and his sharp narrative skills that are peppered with pop culture references firmly place the short story in a hip, modern context.
Bernice Harrison