She Fades Away, by Michael Carroll (Poolbeg, £3.99)Ghosts, grandads and awful jokes; Michael Carroll is apparently a writer of fantasy fiction but this is more of a high class …Sat May 18 1996 - 01:00
High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby (Indigo, £5.99 in UK)Nick Hornby is the quintessential New Lad, and the dazzling prose of this, his first novel, inspired reviewers to dizzying heights…Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
Fresh thoughts from the music man"AN unpleasant critic is an impossible one, and a bore to his readers, ever accurate his judgments."Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
Jackie Under My Skin: interpreting an icon, by Wayne Koestenbaum (Fourth Estate, £8.99 in UK)The opening pages of this study of Jackie Onassis read like a study in high camp writing style; surely, you think, Wayne Koestenbaum…Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
NOT TIN-TOTELLEN Kent of Dual Control International opera touring agency wants to give me a know what history of MoldaviaSat May 11 1996 - 01:00
Therapy, by David Lodge (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Pain, they say, is a warning that something is severely amiss: but when Lodge's latestanti hero, Laurence "Tubby" Passmore, starts…Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
The Silent Twins, by Marjorie Wallace (Vintage, £7.99 in UK)Distraught parents who occasionally wish for the return of the days when children - really were seen and not heard, beware - …Sat May 4 1996 - 01:00
Handel, with careIT used to be the musical equivalent of brown rice and sandals but nowadays it has become pretty much the norm: if you're doing…Sat May 4 1996 - 01:00
A Note Of Parting, by Liz Ryan (Coronet, £5.99 in UK)Don't be misled by the cover, a soft focus fishing village affair with a child standing forlornly on a sunlit beach; Liz Ryan…Sat May 4 1996 - 01:00
The Black Book, by Orhan Pamuk (Faber & Faber, £6.99 in UK)For most Westerners it's probably fair to say that Turkish culture is a closed book; certainly the Turkey of Orhan Pamuk's fiction…Sat May 4 1996 - 01:00
The next great tenor?WE heard it before, haven't we? The new Pavarotti. The new Domingo. The best since Caruso. The greatest thing sliced breadThu May 2 1996 - 01:00
Accidental Empires, by Robert X. Cringely (Penguin, £7.99 in UK)If you've been watching the Channel 4 television series on the development of the personal computer industry in the US, Triumph…Sat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
Mother of all weepiesTUTU gorgeous: that's how you might sum up La Sylphide, one of the gems of the "white" ballet repertoire, because the ethereal…Sat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
God Bless John Wayne, by Kinky Friedman (Faber & Faber, £8.99 in UK)The titles of Kinky Friedman's crime thrillers have been getting more and more extravagant; first there was Elvis, Jesus and …Sat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
Mysterious Skin, by Scott Helm (Black Swan, £6.99 in UK)A strange, sensitive and almost frighteningly accomplished first novel about gay teenagers in early 1980s middle America, Mysterious…Sat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
Riding the Rap, by Elmore Leonard (Penguin, £5.99 in UK)It begins innocuously enough with a fugitive arrested by accident on a drinks driving chargeSat Apr 20 1996 - 01:00
Alec Guinness Master of Disguise, by Gary O'Connor (Sceptre, £6.99)Alec Guinness may well, as, his biographer writes in his opening sentence, be a secret wrapped in an enigma inside aSat Apr 20 1996 - 01:00
Cautionary tales from the catwalksWhy does the world need supermodels? According to the French photographer Gerald Marie, who created the trio known in the business…Sat Apr 13 1996 - 01:00
Hemingway's Chair, by Michael Palin (Mandarin, £5.99 in UK)Michael Palin, in his TV manifestations at least, is an amiable and witty chapSat Apr 13 1996 - 01:00
To Have And To HoldFOR better or for worse, n sickness and in health, to have and to hold: even in a secular society, the comforting phrases of …Sat Apr 13 1996 - 01:00
Greta and Cecil, by Diana Souhami (Flamingo, £7.99 in UK)Do we ever tire of the exploits, or non exploits, of Greta Garbo and Cecil Beaton? Apparently not, for here's another book devoted…Sat Apr 13 1996 - 01:00
The Dead School, by Patrick McCabe (Picador, £6.99 in UK)With this tale of two teachers gone to the bad Pat McCabe goes so close to the bone that jagged shards fly everywhere, puncturing…Sat Apr 6 1996 - 01:00
Is Ruth Rendell as good as Barbara Vine? Arminta Wallace meets them both, in live flesh, so to speak, during a visit to Dublin to promote the eighth Vine novel, The Brimstone WeddingAS Ruth Rendel she is the creator of Inspector Wexford, one of television's most genial murder investigatorsSat Apr 6 1996 - 01:00
The Virago Book of Women Gardeners, edited by Deborah Kellaway (Virago, £7.99 in UK)What, an entire anthology of writers wittering on about herbaceous borders and Dutch gardens and the principles on which the …Sat Apr 6 1996 - 01:00
When The Tunnels Meet: Contemporary Romanian poetry, edited by John Fairleigh (Bloodaxe, £7.95 in UK)Tunnels meeting is an apt image, for this is more than just the usual selecting and translating job of the editor of an anthology…Sat Apr 6 1996 - 01:00
New music - which people actually likeA LONG line of melody paints a misty picture of a Scottish landscape; a haunted, anguished echo, recreates the pain of Mary Magdalene…Thu Apr 4 1996 - 01:00
Anthony Perkins A Haunted Life, by Ronald Bergan (Warner, £7.99 in UK)When it's good when, for example, he's describing Orson Welles directing his subject in the film of Kafka's The Trial "You are…Sat Mar 30 1996 - 00:00
La Moreau A Biography of Jeanne Moreau, by Marianne Gray (Warner, £7.99 in UK)Not only has Marianne Gray done her homework, researching the career of the ultra cool French actress with meticulous attention…Sat Mar 30 1996 - 00:00
99 poems in Translation An Anthology, edited by Harold Pinter, Anthony Astbury and Geoffrey Godbert (Faber & Faber, £7.99 in UK)There seems to be no particular reason for this anthology nor indeed, for the magic number 99 why not 66? Or 100? which makes…Sat Mar 30 1996 - 00:00
Full Stop, by Joan Smith (Vintage, £5,99 in UK)Suppose you're staying at a friend's apartment in New York for the weekend, the friend being absent on what when you come to …Sat Mar 23 1996 - 00:00
Without A Guide, edited by Katherine Govier (Pandora, £8.99 in UK)Another of those pointless anthologies of travel pieces by women can write, women can travel, ergo let's have a collection of…Sat Mar 23 1996 - 00:00
Did you hear about yer wan?LANGUAGE is truly a wondrous thing. It is what enables me to write these words on this page and you to read themSat Mar 23 1996 - 00:00
William Shakespeares' Richard III, by Ian McKellen (Doubleday, £8.99 in UK)"Shakespeare," writes Ian McKellen in his introduction to this classify produced screenplay, "took blank verse and ran with it…Sat Mar 23 1996 - 00:00
A Charmian way of lifeHERE we go again. Is it just me, or is contemporary popular fiction crammed to the covers with successful single career women…Wed Mar 20 1996 - 00:00
Our Game, by John le Carre (Coronet, £5.99 in UK)Spying may have gone out of fashion, but spy thrillers never will, it seems at least as long as the master himself stays in the…Sat Mar 16 1996 - 00:00
A hurricaine called Hiaasen. Stormy Weather, by Carl Hiaasen, read by Edward Asher (Random House, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £8.99 in UK)Sat Mar 16 1996 - 00:00
The Black Album, by Hanif Kureishi (Faber & Faber, £5.99 in UK)Kureishi's fiction flows easily into the gaps where cultures don't quite meet immigrant culture, native culture, popular culture…Sat Mar 16 1996 - 00:00
Jodie Foster, by Philippa Kennedy (Pan, £5.99)Hollywood, it is said, can't figure Jodie Foster out - not because she dabbles in the occult or talks to trees because she's …Sat Mar 9 1996 - 00:00
The Sculptress, by Minette Walters (Pan, £5,99 in UK)Murderess most horrible, that's Olive Martin - who, having made lamb cutlets of her mother and sister and a mess of the kitchen…Sat Mar 9 1996 - 00:00
Get Shorty, by Elmore Leonard (Penguin, £5.99 in UK)The ultra-cool movie version is on the way, courtesy of the Dublin Film Festival, but Leonard's bleak black comedy about a Miami…Sat Mar 9 1996 - 00:00
Absolutely charmingIT'S like.. " Philippe Cassard is searching for the right word to describe the finale of Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, …Sat Mar 2 1996 - 00:00
Mimi's Ghost by Tim Parks (Minerva, £6.99)Tim Parks has approached fiction via the academic route, being the translator of - among others - Italo Calvino and Roberto Calasso…Sat Mar 2 1996 - 00:00
You gotta search for the hero to buy your carBLACK and white shot. A car glides, slim and stylish and gleaming silver, across an apparently endless bridgeSat Mar 2 1996 - 00:00
Phillippa's Folly By Louise Couper (Poolbeg, £4.99)Up to now Irish "light" fiction has struck me as having a slightly abashed air, like someone who finds themselves at an opening…Sat Mar 2 1996 - 00:00
Original Sin, by P.D. James (Penguin, £5.99)Is it just me, or is there a distinctly Dickensian feel to this thriller? I mean, it is just another competently crafted and …Sat Feb 24 1996 - 00:00
Semana Santa, by David Hewson (Harpercollins, £5.99 in UK)A chunky thriller set picturesquely amid the corridas and corruption of Holy Week in Andalucia, Semana Santa is steeped in Spanish…Sat Feb 24 1996 - 00:00
A voice to die withTHE sleepy sidestreets of the quiet south London suburb of Putney seem about as far removed as you can get from the tempests …Thu Feb 22 1996 - 00:00
Tapes et the River Delta, by Peter Cunningham (Arrow, £5.99 in UK)Peter Cunningham sets himself an ambitious agenda, in this wide ranging thriller which spans a century of Irish history and he…Sat Feb 17 1996 - 00:00
On Trial For Murder, by Douglas Wynn (Pan, £6.99 in UK)A pocket dictionary of famous murder trials? Just what everyone's pocket has been waiting for, I'd say: a handy alphabetical …Sat Feb 17 1996 - 00:00