This week's paperbacks

Mistaken

Neil Jordan

John Murray, £7.99

It begins as a kind of exasperated joke: one Dublin boy constantly being mistaken for another. Kevin Thunder is thrown out of shops on Grafton Street and arcades on O'Connell Street for crimes he never committed; he also finds himself getting up close and intimate with girls he has never met before. As he and his southside doppelganger gradually grow into men, however, the stakes get higher and the story gets stranger. Mistaken is a literary novel with the constant menace of a thriller and the driving narrative momentum of a murder mystery. Add to this the razor-sharp observation and the sheer beauty of the writing and you have something quite remarkable. (Don't even try to factor in Jordan's other career as a successful Hollywood director: you'll start to get dizzy.) Written in short chapters, each of which bears the name of a location, the story swirls like a mist around its dark heart; themes of love, loss, family, the self, class consciousness, Dublin. Mistaken has everything. Arminta Wallace

Why Architecture Matters

Paul Goldberger

Yale, £11.99

Why do some buildings function well and lift spirits while others are ugly or don't even register with us, such is their mediocrity? Paul Goldberger, architecture critic of the New Yorker, gives his thoughts on this in a clear style that is free from archispeak. There isn't a universal recipe for what makes a good building, but there are key ingredients, one being intent, says the author. Goldberger also discusses architecture's need to incorporate both art and practicality. Yet structures often just have one or the other (or neither). The author speaks from the heart and is at his best when discussing actual buildings, comparing good with bad, to illustrate what works. At other times he reminds us about what we innately know, for instance that homes hold huge memories for us; he delights in structures that exceed expectations, and he gives concrete (and brick, wood and steel) examples of buildings that elicit an emotional response. And that is why architecture matters; because it can touch us spiritually as well as physically, he says. Emma Cullinan

Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1950-2008

Nadine Gordimer

Bloomsbury, £12.99

Mandela, Tutu, Luthuli, Huddleston and Said are among the luminaries known to Nadine Gordimer. She wrote to them and about them, so to have two volumes containing her shorter work from the 1950s to 2008 is a boon. Life Times is a short-fiction collection; Telling Times comprises her nonfiction work. Its first essay, "A South African Childhood", records her latent awakening to colour and race and is the single biographical piece. The next 91 pieces range from book reviews, letters, polemical writings and literary analysis to purviews on global issues. Regrettably, there is neither an introduction nor information on whether pieces were commissioned or submitted; only a source-acknowledgments notice is available to readers, who, for years to come yet, will want to engage with the pre-/post-apartheid background of Gordimer's writing almost as steadily as with her novels, stories and essays. Kate Bateman

Moth Smoke

Mohsin Hamid

Penguin, £7.99

Daru is a midlevel Pakistani bank official with a drug habit and a fiery temper. Resentful of the snobbery that characterises his peers and their restrictive social circle, he nevertheless craves entry into this glittering world. When his wealthy former schoolmate Ozi returns to Lahore with his beguiling new bride, Mumtaz, Daru finds himself intoxicated by her presence to the point where his life's other preoccupations melt away. Conducted against the backdrop of Pakistan's 1998 nuclear tests, and the collective unease and social unrest that emerges in their wake, the ensuing affair and its inevitable disintegration plunge Daru into a pit of addiction and criminality from which there can be no rescue. Lauded on its publication in 2000 for its pioneering of a fresh, contemporary approach to South Asian fiction, as well as an innovative structure that utilises multiple voices, historical allegory and sardonic, sexualised humour, Moth Smoke is a violent, steamy descent into a world where frustration and poverty hold dominion. Dan Sheehan

Censoring an Iranian Love Story

Shahriar Mandanipour

Abacus, £7.99

The Iranian writer's new novel is a dazzling, witty examination of the ways in which oppression and censorshop can be eluded. In lively prose, fluidly translated from the Farsi by Sara Khalili, Mandanipour tells – or tries to tell – the story of two young would-be lovers, Dara and Sara, and their attempts to find each other in a country where privacy and free speech can never be taken for granted. Whenever the story crosses into dangerous territory, whether political or romantic, the offending phrases are crossed out and replaced with a more officially acceptable version of events. The "safe" version of the story appears in bold print, the author's own version in roman. By allowing the reader to see what has been erased, Mandanipour offers us a double image of Iran, one that conforms to official expectations and one that doesn't. It's an ambitious conceit, but, although the two protagonists sometimes feel more like symbols than real people, Mandanipour pulls it off. Anna Carey