Paperbacks

Our pick of the latest releases

The Quantum Universe: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen

Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw

Penguin, £8.99

This slim tome packs quite a punch, and doesn't talk down to those who have no experience of science beyond what they might have studied (with difficulty) at school. But, in tandem with explaining the fundamentals of physics (quantum and otherwise) and what the universe is truly made of, it also provides clear and comfortable examples of the why as well. Brian Cox is perhaps the best known of the recent crop of British scientists who have presented TV and radio programmes, which means he is well versed in translating big facts into easily digestible bits for the curious reader or viewer. That is not to say that reading about such things as why a particle can be in two places at once, or why we don't fall through the floor, is necessarily a doddle; it takes effort. It's also surprisingly good fun, and, given the uncertainties of modern life, who wouldn't appreciate a greater understanding of the world around us? Claire Looby

In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination

Margaret Atwood

Virago, £9.99

Do not let the "SF" in the title confuse you: this is a book about science fiction, not Sinn Féin. That said, you might be surprised that the award-winning Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood deigns to take an interest in science fiction. It is a genre, after all, that is often not taken seriously as proper literature, though that may change after Atwood's contribution. Yes, she talks about Batman and superheroes and shows a remarkable knowledge of contemporary science fiction – even to the extent of naming the android Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation – but there is much more here. This is a work about the human imagination and how writers imagine the world in different scenarios. There are references to Greek mythology and the Epic of Gilgamesh, folklore, HG Wells, Shakespeare and Swift, to name but a few. Atwood offers insights into a vast range of literature and popular culture, and all done without bombast and with no little humour. Fascinating, as Mr Spock might say. Pól Ó Muirí

Enemies: A Love Story

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Penguin, £10.99

Isaac Bashevis Singer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. This novel, published six years earlier, is reprinted now to celebrate a writer who explored the more complex aspects of identity and emotion. Here the landscape is Yiddish New York, which his protagonist, the refugee and Holocaust survivor Herman Broder, navigates, with New York's constantly shifting borders as a metaphor for Broder's own protean personal terrain. Broder's life is muddied and has a shape-shifting quality; everyone lives with half-truths and compromises, running from terrible pasts that confuse the present. He is split between Yadwiga, the loyal Polish peasant who hid him from the Nazis; Masha, his wild, true love; Tamara, his first wife; and his own damaged self. The way he wanders so specifically around the city brings to mind Joyce's Ulysses, but Broder's sense of paranoia brings an unsettling yet mesmerising quality to the narrative. Siobhán Kane

Frank: The Making of a Legend

James Kaplan

Sphere, £12.99

Does the world need yet another biography of the Chairman of the Board? The surprising answer, on the evidence of this latest doorstopper, is an emphatic yes. Frank takes us from Sinatra's birth, in 1915, up to his stunning professional resurrection in 1954, when his performance in From Here to Eternity garnered him an Oscar for best supporting actor. It does for its subject what Peter Guralnick's Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley did for his only serious rival in the Great American Male Vocalist stakes, making the familiar tale seem incredible all over again. Kaplan conveys the paradoxes and pathologies of Sinatra's huckster personality with novelistic brio while paying microscopic attention to the evolution of his vocal art. The Sinatra who emerges is hard to like but impossible not to root for. We await a second instalment with impatience. Daragh Downes