The latest titles reviewed
Maeve Brennan: Wit, Style and Tragedy - An Irish Writer in New York. Angela Bourke. Pimlico, £7.99
Petite, glamorous and with "a tongue that could clip a hedge", Maeve Brennan was born the year after the Easter Rising and died in 1993. Born in Dublin to politically active, nationalist parents, she moved to the US at age 17. Despite a glittering, cosmopolitan life in New York, where she brought a feminine wit and style to the male-dominated New Yorker magazine during its most influential years (her fellow contributors included Saul Bellow, Edward Albee, and later John Updike), her fiction was deeply rooted in her Irish childhood. Written at a remove, her stories gave a glimpse of the dark underside of the new Republic. Meticulously researched and entertainingly written, Bourke's book is respectful of its subject's talent and her humanity - especially regarding her decline into mental illness near the end of her life. A huge treat for anyone interested in Irish writing. Cathy Dillon
The Plot Against America. Philip Roth. Vintage, £7.99
In what may be conceived as his critique of the current political climate and administration, Roth here turns US history on its head. Focusing on the years 1940-42, American history is re-imagined, with aviation hero and anti-Semite Charles A Lindbergh defeating president Roosevelt by a landslide margin, his policies of isolationism and appeasement of Hitler finding favour with war-weary Americans. Through the eyes of a nine-year-old version of himself, Roth confronts issues of national identity, Jewishness, paranoia and betrayal. The weight of history and the subtle effects of fear are vividly portrayed as Lindbergh's US, firmly allied with Nazi Germany, begins to spiral into a breeding ground for anti-Semitism. While this may be a fictional history, there is something very real about what Roth is trying to say. His prose brims with menace, furiously keeping its relentless pace as he infuses his own Newark childhood with a sense of history gone wrong. Tom Cooney
House of Memories. Alice Taylor. Brandon, €14.99
Alice Taylor makes a welcome return with a story set in 1960s rural Ireland, about family rivalry, changing communities and the power of time to resolve conflicts. Kate Phelan and her teacher husband battle to keep the village school secure against the actions of a wealthy stranger. Meanwhile, Matt Conway's death leaves his family farm in the hands of his son Danny and the prospect of a resurrection of the dilapidated home seems unlikely. But Danny is determined, in the spirit of the age, and is soon enlisting the help of willing neighbours to turn the family's fortunes around, including Kate, whose family Danny's father blamed for his misfortunes. Taylor's own love of the land is obvious, along with a conviction that hard work leads to reward, and overall this is a charming tale. Claire Looby
House of Bush, House of Saud. Craig Unger. Gibson Square, £8.99
While all commercial flights were grounded in the wake of 9/11, a 747 jet was allowed to fly various Saudi nationals home. This is the starting point for Unger's investigation into the connections between the Bushes and the ruling clan of Saudi Arabia. The story reaches back 30 years, when a group of Saudi businessmen began investing in the US. Oil money flowed into real estate and banks. The kingdom was used as a financial conduit to surreptitiously support various US international operations: the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, the Contras in Nicaragua, and Sadaam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war. Unger argues that $1.4 billion made its way from the Saudis to the Bushes and its interests through an investment fund. This well researched account shies away from conspiracy theories, and unravels an intricate and troubling relationship. Eoghan Morrissey
Inside Putin's Russia. Andrew Jack. Granta, £9.99
As Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times during the spring of 2000, Andrew Jack was in prime position to oversee the transfer of power from the ageing Boris Yeltsin to the young former KGB head, Vladimir Putin. Although Putin was Yeltsin's protege, the contrast in the two men was striking, not least in Putin's abstinence from alcohol. Putin's election coincided with a recovering economy, an emerging middle-class, and a post-9/11 climate in the West willing to turn a blind eye to the dirty war in Chechnya. He is president of a rapidly changing country: in 15 years, Russia moved from totalitarianism to Yeltsin's anarchic liberalism. Putin's vision is for liberal authoritarianism: progress, Russian style. This is the book's strength: it gives balance and an excellent insight into a country that remains an enigma in the West. Martin Noonan
Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film. Peter Biskind. Bloomsbury, £8.99
Biskind's follow-up to his classic dissection of the movie brat generation, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, is gossipy and, for buffs, unputdownable, without ever quite hitting the same compelling high. For Biskind, the rise of the independents begins in 1989, when Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies and Videotape jolted awake the snoozy Sundance Film Festival (whose founder, Robert Redford, is portrayed as a well-intentioned but intentionally aloof control freak). Amid page after page of power-suit squabbling and boardroom back-stabbing, a few irrepressible film-makers (Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Allison Anders) do shine. But the undoubted star is the half-brilliant, half-crazed Miramax steamroller Harvey Weinstein who, with his hulking brother Bob, made indie films cool - until selling out to Disney. The beastly Weinsteins deserve a tome of their own. Kevin Sweeney