The Irish Times reviews a selection of paperbacks
The Master Colm Tóibín Picador, £7.99
As even a cursory reading of the private dramas of his notebooks and letters demonstrates, Henry James is a more fitting subject for novelistic treatment than his reputation allows. It is yet a brave move for any novelist to adopt as subject a forebear who is widely accepted as the very master of the genre. Tóibín concentrates on the five years (1895-99) during which James suffered a kind of midlife personal/artistic crisis. Readers with no interest in James may wonder what all the fuss is about with this Booker-shortlisted novel; readers with a knowledge of James may find that the research sometimes sits too obviously on the page and may deliberate whether the occasional flatness of James's interior life here is a due reflection of his famed emotional emaciation; readers who have followed the rise and rise of Tóibín's profile will acknowledge that this deeply felt extended tribute is by far his most substantial novel to date. - John Kenny
Three Tales Gustave Flaubert, translated by Roger Whitehouse Penguin, £6.99
This is Flaubert's final work, a collection of three long short-stories told in a direct, clear style, almost like folk-tales, and seemingly free of the corrosive irony - indeed, the misanthropy - which characterised Flaubert's masterpieces, Sentimental Education and Madame Bovary. Of the three stories, 'Herodias', 'The Legend of St Julian Hospitator' and 'A Simple Heart', the last is the most famous. In it, housemaid Félicité gives all her pent-up love to her pet parrot, which appears to her on her deathbed in the form of a gaudy Holy Ghost. Flaubert claimed to have written Trois Contes with his heart firmly on his sleeve, but doubts remain, especially given the ambiguous endings to the stories - was the old magician laughing at us at the close? This new translation is fluid and elegant, and the introduction, by Flaubert's biographer Geoffrey Wall, is a small masterpiece. - John Banville
Soldiers of Light Daniel Bergner Penguin £7.99
A winner of the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage, Soldiers of Light tells the story of the fratricidal conflict that has torn apart Sierra Leone. Bergner traces the country's history, looking at its recent descent into the tragedy and madness of civil war. Those he meets - amputees, child soldiers, mercenaries, peacekeepers, aid workers - all have heart-rending and shocking stories to tell. The author immerses himself in the lives of the people and his background in fiction means the descriptive passages fly off the page. Bergner does not shirk from showing the gruesomeness and despair of war - yet still finds room for hope. An intelligent and self-examining book, it is a moving exploration of civil war at its worst . - Eoghan Morrissey
Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation Umberto Eco Phoenix, £7.99
When Eco fed the expression "the works of Shakespeare" into AltaVista's automatic translation system, Babelfish, it came out in Italian as gli impianti di Shakespeare, which re-translates into English as "the plants of Shakespeare" - industrial plants, that is. From this he points out that translating does not mean simply turning one set of symbols into another. Instead, it involves contextual selections, and concerns not only words and language but also the world described by a given text. By taking examples from translations of his own works, and the works of those he has translated, Eco reveals the pitfalls and successes of translation. On success: "Translating means not only leading the reader to understanding the language and culture of the original but also enriching one's own language." To illustrate this, there is a fascinating discussion of French and Italian translations of the Anna Livia episode in Finnegans Wake. - Brian Maye
Madness Visible: A Memoir of War Janine di Giovanni Bloomsbury, £8.99
As senior foreign correspondent for the Times, Janine di Giovanni was no newcomer to frontline reporting when she arrived in the Balkans in 1999. Journalists' accounts of war can be harsh, jaded, voyeuristic even, but di Giovanni's voice betrays horror despite her experience as she narrates journeys between Pristina, Kosovo, and Sarajevo at the height of the fighting. She lays bare a new low; new not because eviction, genocide, and rape are new war tactics, but rather because the Balkans proved that the most heinous aspects of history repeat themselves in alarmingly short cycles from which we still fail to learn. She recounts the experiences of refugees, recruits, and soldiers with a succinctness that reflects how they were told her - on the run. Madness Visible imparts a sense of the many thousands of such stories which make up the reality of war. - Nora Mahony
The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: the Emotional World of Farm Animals Jeffrey Masson Vintage, £7.99
Following on from his previous works on the emotions of animals, former psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson now looks at the creatures we eat. He looks not at what we are eating but at whom, contending that animals are capable of the same range of emotions as humans. Pigs, sheep, cows, chickens, ducks and geese are examined, drawing on evolutionary biology, philosophy and literature, including the Bible and Darwin. Visits are made to animal sanctuaries and factory farms. Masson asks if no thought is given to animal suffering, are we not morally blind and humanly remiss? The ownership of animals is akin to slavery, he says. His argument contains supposition and flights of fancy, yet makes a compelling case for re-considering the bacon, eggs and sausages a good portion of society consumed for breakfast this morning. - Eoghan Morrissey