Our pick of this week's releases

Lights Out in Wonderland DBC Pierre

Faber and Faber, £7.99

The Leitrim-based Booker winner's latest novel charts a madcap, philosophical debauch from England to Japan to Germany, as suicidal psychiatric-institution escapee Gabriel Brockwell endeavours to carve out his own piece of hedonistic "limbo" one last time. Having fled a group of politicised debt collectors back home in London, and inadvertently prompted the arrest (for murder by fish poisoning, no less) of a fugu chef friend by Tokyo authorities, Gabriel is tasked with tracking down the ultimate banquet venue – hidden within the labyrinthine depths of a disused east Berlin airport – in order to barter his compatriot's freedom. The anarchic breathlessness of the book's opening third is certainly entertaining, but it is only when Pierre dials down some of his world-weary protagonist's rambling inner musings, as Gabriel becomes more emotionally invested in his bizarre German odyssey, that the heart of the story emerges. A sharp, comic gem of a novel with an explosive conclusion. DAN SHEEHAN

A Boy at the Hogarth Press: An Illustrated Memoir

Richard Kennedy

Hesperus Press, £7.99

This little beauty of a book holds an intriguing story, but as a shapely artefact it's even more fascinating. This version is published by Hesperus Press – distinguished for reissuing endangered or neglected classics. John Randle, cofounder of Whittington Press, in his introduction tells of the original 1972 publication, set on a hand press after years of hearing the author talk about his four years with Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press. This is a tale of an apprenticeship served in literary London "about 1928", where the masters were artistic and dictatorial and the apprentice naive, awkward and willing. It's an antidote to academic Bloomsbury, but also of its time; political correctness had not arrived, so pornography and eschatology were easily discussed. A Boy, with its 83 pages, and as many fine line drawings, between pale blue covers, is a delight to read, to hold and to give. KATE BATEMAN

Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family

Tamara Chalabi

Harper Press, £12.99

A neglected side of the story of Iraq is explored here: how Mesopotamia became a modern state, and the role of the Chalabi family, prominent bourgeois Shiites who are now well known to observers of US-Iraqi politics. In 1916, Bibi, the author's grandmother, was a bride of 16, just before the collapse of Ottoman rule (after the British invasion of 1917, as oil interests peaked in the West). History interpolates, but this is a memoir, evoking decades of everyday life in Baghdad: the sugared almonds, buffalo cream and spiced dishes the Chalabis eat; bazaars, harems, shrines and nightclubs they visit; political tensions and servant relationships. After the regicidal bloodbath of 1958, imperial splendour turns to devastation as the family is forced by the communists to flee to London and Beirut. Unfortunately, the prose is flat and self-conscious, we have met most of the characters before, and little of the politics, religion or culture is explored in depth. MAGGIE ARMSTRONG

Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped

A Roger Ekirch

Norton, £11.99

Replete with skulduggery, treachery, blackguardism and base villainy, this history really does seem the stuff of melodrama. After being cast into Dublin's streets from the home of his father, Baron Altham, James Annesley was kidnapped by his ruthless and malevolent uncle and shipped to America to be sold as a servant, thus putting Uncle Richard in line to inherit five titles and numerous estates. Twelve years later, Annesley managed to return to the British Isles and, with the help of a Scottish benefactor and a swell of public sentiment, sue for his inheritance. The trial occurred in Dublin in 1743, and enthralled the public in Britain and Ireland. Annesley's initial victory in court amounted to nothing, however, as Richard poured his wealth into creating such a logjam of litigation that, by the time of James's death, 16 years later, no conclusion had been reached. Ekirch's research unveils a wonderful story, and the period is richly evoked. COLM FARREN

The Rising: Ireland, Easter 1916

Fearghal McGarry

Oxford University Press, £10.99

The rising began with an abortive attempt by an Irish Citizen Army contingent to capture Dublin Castle. The incident "encapsulates much of the drama, horror and confusion" of Easter week, according to McGarry, and exemplifies its tendency to prioritise "heroic gestures over practical objectives", leading to "a story of missed opportunities and unforeseen disasters". McGarry's approach is different from previous studies of the Rising, in that its perspective is from "within and below", ie that of the ordinary participants who have remained largely unknown. His main source is the Bureau of Military History's witness statements, compiled in the 1940s and 1950s but released only in 2003. He uses these with great skill, cross-checking and weighing the evidence carefully. The eyewitnesses' and participants' accounts give the reader a strong feeling for what it was like to be there: the horror, terror and brutality, but also the courage, chivalry and fellow-feeling. BRIAN MAYE