This week's paperbacks
They is Us
Tama Janowitz
The Friday Project, £7.99
In this futuristic dystopian satire of America, the usual suspects haunt everyday life: terrorism, pollution, and hyper-commercialisation. Julie’s poor family is relegated to the suburbs where they are exposed to radioactive substances and petrochemical swamps (unlike the rich, who are sealed from pollution in gated communities). Her summer job at an animal laboratory introduces the dangers of genetic engineering – pink- and blue-feathered rabbits are caged next to pigs with human organs – and only Julie can save them from being thrown in a skip when they’re no longer needed by hiding them at home in her basement. Though the storyline is thin, Janowitz’s imaginative prose is full of dead-pan humour. Ignore the trickery of differing fonts and photographs snuck onto every couple of pages and just study the terrifying image of what our world could become.
Emily Firetog
The Soloist
Steve Lopez
Black Swan, £7.99
Amid the roar of traffic in a tunnel off LA's Skid Row, Nathaniel Ayers was playing Beethoven on a violin that bore only two strings when Steve Lopez first encountered him. At the time, the LA Times journalist was looking for material for his column and something about Ayers's "rumpled elegance" appealed to him. How did this man come to be playing music in one of the poorest and most dangerous parts of a city famed for its wealth and glamour? The following two years saw Lopez investigate and, through his daily column, call public attention to the abysmal conditions in which so many of the city's most vulnerable inhabitants live. Through their friendship, Ayres found renewed hope, displaying the remarkable musical talent that won him a place at the Juilliard School as a teenager, as well as the debilitating schizophrenia which had dictated his grim future. It's an enthralling read, since made into a film, a story of the "redemptive power of music" and the power of persistence and of friendship. Claire Looby
The First Person and Other Stories
Ali Smith
Penguin, £7.99
Ali Smith is well-known as a writer who delights in pushing boundaries, and her latest collection of short stories does much to strengthen that reputation. Ostensibly about modern-day life and love, The First Person and the stories which follow are ultimately an exploration of literary and linguistic perspective – and of the changing consequences of this eternally impermanent state. In The Second Person, an entire relationship is summed up by differing interpretations of a single phrase: "You're something else, you really are", while in Writ, Smith discusses her first kiss with her 14-year-old self. Idiosyncratic musings on topics such as the sexual prowess of various books and the mythological characteristics of the short story are used to leaven more serious reflections on subjects such as a woman's struggle with breast cancer and the effects of an alcoholic mother on a child. Freya McClements
The Gutenberg Revolution
John Man
Bantam, £8.99
"On a graph of human contact over the last 5,000 years, the line from grunt to email is not a regular curve." It has four turning-points, according to Man: the invention of writing, of the alphabet and the coming of the Internet are one, two and four and the third, the subject of this book, is the invention of printing with movable metal type. And what a turning-point. In 1450, books in Europe were all handcopied and numbered a few thousand; by 1500, they were printed and amounted to millions. Most of the raw materials for Gutenberg's breakthrough were already in existence; his genius lay in seeing how they could be combined to create a revolution. He was a devout Catholic and hoped his invention would unify the warring factions of the faith; instead it facilitated the Reformation. Man's style is lively and lucid; he is equally at home invoking the atmosphere of medieval Mainz or detailing the nitty-gritty of the master printer's craft. Brian Maye
Apology for the Woman Writing
Jenny Diski
Virago, £7.99
Diski makes repeated mention of ashes throughout this historical novel, providing readers with an effective symbol of the book's theme of thwarted ambitions. Enamoured with the essays of Montaigne, Marie de Gournay dedicates her life to promoting and preserving his work with unnatural dedication. A self-taught, independent female in a world where such a thing was unheard of, de Gournay shows great promise in her early life, but is beleaguered by false starts and failed intentions. Her passions, intellect, and relationships are all frustrated by her self-destructive arrogance making her, ultimately, a pathetic character to whom readers may struggle to relate. Diski's novel will appeal to those who love to cringe at the social failings of the truly awkward. Beyond that guilty pleasure, the book carries on its course offering no final edification. Marie de Gournay is depicted by Diski as all smoke and ashes with never a spark of flame, making her a curious subject for historical fiction. Megan L McCarty