Irish Times writers review the latest paperbacks.
The Burning of Bridget Cleary by Angela Bourke HarperCollins, £8.99
In the preface to this edition of her book Angela Bourke says she sought to present the facts of the burning and death of Bridget Cleary on a Friday evening in March 1895, "so as to convey the sense of place, time and personality . . . and to situate this small history among the currents of contemporary events". So well achieved is this balance that the reader is regularly bounced between the sequence of grimly thrilling steps that led to the actual lifting onto the fire of the stylish, literate, sick woman by her husband and relatives, and the social/political events of the decade. However, the most vigorous idea and sustained thread running through the work is the contrast between oral and written cultures, with Bourke showing that the mindset of those who could read and write was likely different - neither more nor less valuable - to those who relied on an earlier lore. Kate Bateman
A Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart Bloomsbury £7.99
A young sculptor with a Canadian arts council grant finds himself the sole inhabitant of a tiny island. His search for inspiration in the frozen wilderness leads him to discover a body encased in the ice, and he promptly returns to the city. A year later, the artist's work is interrupted by the dead man's lover, a strange, sensitive middle-aged woman. At sea in the city, and affected by an undiagnosed illness seemingly on the autism spectrum, Sylvia recounts how her small, quiet life was lived in the tiniest details, pleasures and frustrations until the sudden departure of her lover. An engrossing and carefully constructed novel, A Map of Glass is commendable for its successful use of flashback, a device capable of sinking even the most solid story. From an initially bewildering first chapter, unifying details soon build a fascinating portrait of a particularly unusual woman and her world. Nora Mahony
Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs: the Left Bank World of Shakespeare & Co by Jeremy Mercer Phoenix Books, £7.99
Shakespeare & Co in Paris is one of the few remaining bookshops anywhere in the world that has both history and soul. Established in 1951 by mendicant American George Whitman, it is still open and, now aged 92,Whitman still lives over the shop. Long a stopping-off place for visiting writers and international bibliophiles, the bookshop is at least as famous for Whitman's tradition of giving beds for free to passing travellers as it is for its contents. An estimated 40,000 people have slept in the shop in the last 55 years. Canadian crime-reporter Jeremy Mercer was one, living there for a period of six months in 2000. His memoir of that time is a fascinating document of an extraordinary institution, as well as being a fine portrait of Whitman. If in Paris, do go and see this famous bookshop while it still survives, in all its lovely philanthrophic chaos. Rosita Boland
My Lives by Edmund White Bloomsbury, £8.99
The early life of US writer and academic Edmund White was not that of the average white boy. In a staid, mid-20th-century, middle-class Midwest, homosexuals such as he saw themselves persecuted by an unholy trinity of psychiatry, religion and law, reflecting the prevailing view that his orientation was mental illness, sin or crime. Home life in the White household makes the Addams family seem like the Waltons. Smothered by a disturbingly intimate mother, Edmund was ignored by a cold and austere father who saw even wristwatches as unmanly, yet who later painted the family home pink for a new wife who, ironically, bore the surname of Beard. White's memoir recalls events, people and places of an insecure, peripatetic life in the Midwest, in New York and in Paris with an intelligence and elegance which is moving, funny and sad, yet occasionally, woundedly graphic. John Moran
Persian Fire by Tom Holland Abacus, £9.99
Though we may wish otherwise, rarely does David beat Goliath when it matters. To the powerful Persian Empire in the fifth century, BC, the defiance of a shaky confederation of small Greek city-states (Athens and Sparta) must have seemed like an annoying fly. Squash it and the problem is solved. So Xerxes led his mighty Persian army on a Greek offensive, seemingly certain of victory. Against this juggernaut, the Greek defences seemed hopelessly inadequate.This is the page-turning story of how the Greeks at first frustrated and finally defeated the Persians against all the odds, a victory which has been described as "changing the history of the world". This is a beautifully balanced narrative, for Holland refuses to take sides in one of the great conflicts of the ancient world and his cool analysis contrasts handsomely with his accounts of the bloodcurdling battles. Owen Dawson
Lady Hester: Queen of the East by Lorna Gibb Faber, £8.99
As chief of the household of her uncle, British PM William Pitt, Lady Hester Stanhope had an involvement in political society unthinkable for most women of the day. However, following Pitt's death and a publicly humiliating rejection, she became reclusive and turned her back on England. With her sycophantic physician, Dr Meryon, Hester travelled to Syria, adopted male Turkish dress and threw herself (uninvited) into tribal politics. As her story unfolds, she comes across as a tragic, rather unlovable woman, whose reputation was at odds with her character. Her independence and generosity were largely facilitated by a state pension and slaves. Her life in Syria was a scandal in gossip-hungry 19th-century society, but in later years she was a desperate woman living in a surreal self-imposed isolation. Gibb's success is in presenting the human side of this dichotomy. Marcus Keane