THE CALIPH'S HOUSE

Tahir Shah

A man with one young child and another on the way decides to mend his peripatetic ways and finally put down roots. After some thought he buys himself a house in need of some repair, and moves the family into it. If the man is Tahir Shah, author of five remarkably zany and entertainingly quixotic travel books, and if the house happens to be the former residence of the Caliph of Casablanca, it should come as no surprise that what might otherwise be a fairly standard renovation tale takes on dimensions that are unpredictable, enlightening, exotic, and entertaining. No sooner has he taken possession of the house than Shah finds himself with a retinue of dependent recalcitrant attendants, at the mercy of unscrupulous contractors, bedazzled by bureaucratic tangles and with his house apparently inhabited by malevolent spirits. Shah is of almost irrepressible good cheer, however, and capable of unearthing a ray of unusual light under every bushel of seeming ill-fortune. His rather insistent intransigence regarding the superstitions that govern local culture make for very interesting encounters. This is a clash of civilizations that is refreshingly free of malice. Compassion manages to worm its way into every potentially dire collision. 'The Caliph’s House' is full of interesting characters and local colour, and there are even lessons for those who care to read the book on that level. This is a very elegant and satisfying excursion that will perhaps introduce new readers to an accomplished storyteller, and will certainly not disappoint those familiar with his previous work.

VOLTAIRE ALMIGHTY

Roger Pearson

Roger Pearson, Professor of French at the University of Oxford, has produced an irreverent yet considered biography of the man who epitomized the European Enlightenment, and for whom the pursuit of freedom was the one overriding issue. Pearson vividly portrays the long and colourful life of Voltaire whose dubious financial dealings, scandalous love affairs, acrimonious literary feuds and constant battles with religious persecution and absolutist government were part and parcel of his life-long quest to establish the principles of freedom, justice and tolerance.

GIRLS OF TENDER AGE

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

This remarkable book hooks you from the first page, and doesn’t let go, even long after you’ve finished it. A deceptively simple and comfortable reminiscence of life in working class Hartford Connecticut in the 1950s, rendered with obvious affection but with steel-eyed precision, Girls of Tender Age also attempts to come to terms with a crime that occurred when the author was very young and impressionable, and concerned above all with proper Catholic comportment. When she was in fifth grade, one of her classmates was murdered. The book is an attempt to understand the nature of this crime and also an attempt to make sense of the community’s response to it. It is also, in a way, an attempt to pay tribute to a life prematurely extinguished. It succeeds on all counts. Impressively free of any influence of hindsight, this is a highly amusing tale of life in a very demanding family, and, at the same time, an almost unbearably tense recreation of a dismal, sordid crime and its pathetic aftermath. Throughout, sentimentality is avoided; judgments are left almost exclusively to the reader. Evocative, even-handed, and wry, this is a brilliant and brave undertaking, clearly the work of an author in complete command. It is an uncompromising look at an unforgiving time, and it is a rattling good read.

SEVEN LIES

James Lasdun

From the author of 'The Horned Man' comes another calculated and murky novel recounted by a narrator who is less than forthright. Stefan Vogel is an East Berliner whose talents as a poet, rather spiritless ambition, and family connections bring him first into the orbit of a group of counterculture intellectuals, and then, finally to America, married to the woman of his dreams, and safely clear of his past. As the political landscape changes so his carefully constructed existence becomes unglued. The style is coolly precise, the characters are artfully and almost casually delineated; the plot unfolds at a deceptively measured pace. An immensely readable, darkly fashioned tale of deceit and desire, 'Seven Lies' is also an incisive psychological look at the two dominant political cultures of our time.

LOST PAINTING

Jonathan Harr

In 1989 a graduate student at the University of Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, working on a project to create a database of all Italian works of art, came across the trail of a lost painting by the artist Caravaggio. In 1990 a restorer, working for the National Gallery of Ireland was invited to a Jesuit residence in Dublin, to see about cleaning some of the paintings that had been hanging there for many years. Jonathan Harr, in his first book since the wildly successful "A Civil Action", takes the stories of these two characters, mixes in a bit of Caravaggio background, and fashions a smooth and compelling tale of detection involving the business side of the world of art over 400 years. Blending science, art, cut-throat professional jealousy, business and scholarship, this entertaining and accessible book unfolds almost cinematically. It will serve as an introduction to various aspects of the art world, but is perfectly satisfying on its own.

OUR CULTURE, WHAT'S LEFT OF IT

Theodore Dalrymple

Through several years of working in some of the world’s less luxurious destinations (read combat zones), and years of medical practice in equally dismal domestic surroundings, including the British prison system, Theodore Dalrymple has certainly earned the right to wield his pen to describe the erosion of the principles of civilization. In this most recent collection of his essays he touches on a variety of topics, from Virginia Woolf to modern Islam, with exceptional and admirable command of both language and subject matter. Every one of the essays, in one way or another, revolves around what Dalrymple sees as the unavoidable effects of years of unrestrained libertinism and of a profound unwillingness, both institutionally and individually, to acknowledge irresponsible behaviour and its inexorable results. In prose deceptively accessible he knocks the stuffing out of some of modern Western culture’s most firmly cherished notions. His essay on the alienation of immigrants in France, written in 2001, has an eerie resonance; his descriptions of the Kafkaesque logic of the modern welfare state ring equally and horribly accurate. Whether you agree with him or not, this unemotional yet passionate collection will impress you with its powerful and persuasive prose and give you reason to think. Quite clearly, Mr. Dalrymple does his own thinking.

CITY OF FALLING ANGELS

John Berendt

On January 29, 1996, a fire destroyed the historic opera house of Venice, La Fenice. Three days later John Berendt, author of the runaway bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, arrived in the city for an extended stay. It is our extraordinary good fortune that he found there enough to occupy his artistic curiosity and to produce this elegant and artistically crafted book. The circumstances surrounding the fire itself, and the impact the loss of the opera house had on Venetians of every stripe serve as the starting point of the author’s investigations, ( to provide just one example of the importance ordinary citizens attached to La Fenice, the city’s prostitutes took up a collection and presented the mayor with a cheque for $1,500.00 to help rebuild it,) and he offers up a heady mix of history, gossip, and reportage involving an impressive and varied cast of characters, and does so with such passion and panache that we are sorry to see the book come to an end. This is a fascinating and extremely satisfying spin through recent Venetian political and social history, masterfully presented. The people encountered are brilliantly delineated, and invariably interesting; every relationship seems to contain at least one level of irresistible intrigue; every encounter seems to present at least two levels of interpretation. The city of Venice is shown to us from intimate and unexpected angles, and we begin to see just how it is that the city has exerted such a magnetic attraction for the cultural imagination, not just in Europe, but among North Americans. This is a brilliant book. Bravo, Berendt.

ISTANBUL Memories and the City

Orhan Pamuk

ISTANBUL: Memories and the City is Orhan Pamuk's highly personal homage to the city that made him a writer. Product of both a family and a city in decline, Pamuk describes the fate of Istanbul as a communal melancholy which infuses its streets, its famous views and its people. Over two hundred period photographs chosen by the author complement the text.

A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRANIAN

Marina Lewycka

Two years after the death of her mother, Nadezhda takes a call from her father announcing his intended remarriage to a woman nearly fifty years younger than himself, with "golden hair" and "superior breasts", who will be coming from his birthplace in the Ukraine, and bringing her son. Confronted with this buxom whirlwind and her impossibly inflated expectations of the everyday affluence of Western culture, Nadezhda is forced to navigate a very perilous line between her pathetically hopeful father, and his venal and manipulative new bride. As events unfold, often quite humorously, Nadezhda finds herself more and more deeply entangled and conflicted, and every character's frailties are revealed. The past is woven tantalizingly in with the present, and just when we are about to lose sympathy for every character in the book, the author quite deftly brings personal history into sharper focus. Nadezhda learns a bit more about her own early years and the ramifications of her family's escape to England from wartime Europe. This is an extremely accomplished novel that speaks to issues that we all must confront during our lives. It is compassionate, witty and wise, and fully deserving of its inclusion on both the Orange Prize short list and the Booker Prize longlist.

THE BOOKSELLER OF KABUL

Asne Seierstad

Shortly after the fall of the Taliban, Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad was invited by Sultan Khan, the bookseller, to share his meagre living quarters with his two wives, five children and assorted relatives. Seierstad has produced a controversial, strikingly intimate account of the vicissitudes of Khan's trade and family life highlighting the contradictions and conflicts of a family torn between the modern and the traditional.

GREENE ON CAPRI

Shirley Hazzard

An exquisitely written remembrance both of Greene and Capri by the distinguished novelist, Shirley Hazzard. A thumbnail history of the island and the characters, ancient and modern, who gravitated to it, and an astute and unsparingly intimate portrait of a sometimes difficult friend and neighbour - his tastes, obsessions and genius.