The Tailor of Panama, by John le Carre (Coronet £6.99 in UK)Anyone who thought the end of the Cold War meant that John le Carre was also finished should check out this masterly portrayal…Sat Jun 21 1997 - 01:00
The Kiln, by William McIlvanney (Sceptre, £6.99 in UK)A writer recalls the formative summer of his teenage years: it has the potential to be a pain in the neck, and the obsessively…Sat Jun 21 1997 - 01:00
Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons (Penguin, £5.99 in UK)Stella Gibbons's 1932 satire of English country life might not, on the face of it, seem to have much to offer a contemporary …Sat Jun 21 1997 - 01:00
Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity, by Miranda Vickers and James Pettiler (Hurst, no price given)Albania has become, in Western Europe, synonymous with isolation and despair (theirs) and ignorance (ours)Sat Jun 21 1997 - 01:00
The Men who Murdered Marilyn, by Matthew Smith (Bloomsbury, £6.99 in UK)One of these days somebody is going to come up with a stunning new theory about the death of Marilyn Monroe - that she was a …Sat Jun 21 1997 - 01:00
Unearthing Rimbaud in obscurity"IN the year 1880, in the dog days of August, a young Frenchman disembarks at Steamer Point, in the Arabian port of AdenTue Jun 17 1997 - 01:00
Resident Alien: The New York Diaries, by Quentin Crisp (Flamingo £7.99 in UK)America was kind to Britain's battiest eccentric, and he achieved celebrity of a sort around the more benign edges of its gossip…Sat Jun 14 1997 - 01:00
The Romance Reader, by Pearl Abraham (Quartet Books £6.00 in UK)Rachel Benjamin is determined to wear sheer stockings, become a lifeguard, join a public library and read herself silly on the…Sat Jun 14 1997 - 01:00
Cold Snap, by Thom Jones (Faber & Faber £6.99 in UK)Global aid meets west coast America in these off the wall stories peopled by strung out, dope crazed, hairy chested men who have…Sat Jun 14 1997 - 01:00
Plagues, by Christopher Wills (Flamingo, £8.99 in UK)Whether it's a flea bitten old plague like bubonic or a glamorous new one like ebola, Christopher Wills puts it under the microscope…Sat Jun 14 1997 - 01:00
Your Mother's Tongue, by Stephen Burgen (Indigo, £6.99 in UK)I blame Quentin Tarantino and Roddy DoyleSat Jun 07 1997 - 01:00
Out of Sight, by Elmore Leonard (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Maybe it's just me, but I thought the great man just a little out of sorts in this heist story featuring a deputy US marshal …Sat May 31 1997 - 01:00
One by One in the Darkness, by Deirdre Madden (Faber & Faber, £6.99 in UK)The everyday life of an "ordinary" Catholic family in Northern Ireland can be anything but ordinary, as this eloquent, elegiac…Sat May 31 1997 - 01:00
FLUTE MAGICYOUNG musicians need all the encouragement they can get these days; it isn't easy to knuckle down and study an instrument amid…Sat May 24 1997 - 01:00
The Debt to Pleasures by John Lancaster (Picador, £5.99 in UK)Tarquin Winot is the perfect antihero for the cappucino classes: erudite, elegant, entirely self obsessed, irredeemably insane…Sat May 24 1997 - 01:00
Harvey Keitel: the art of darkness, by Marshall Fine (HarperCollins, £6.99 in UK)In a brilliant episode of Father Ted in which a pet rabbit goes forth (as pet rabbits are wont to do) and multiplies, prompting…Sat May 17 1997 - 01:00
Last Orders, by Graham Swift (Picador £5.99 in UK)Lenny, Vic, Ray and Vince set off to carry out their late friend Jack's out-of character last wish: to have his ashes scattered…Sat May 17 1997 - 01:00
Top Of The PromsPROGRAMMING for the Bank of Ireland RTE Proms concerts at the RDS in Dublin has always emphasised the popular end of the classical…Sat May 17 1997 - 01:00
Chaos, by James Gleick (Minerva, £7.99 in UK)During the 1970s various scientists, working independently of each other, found themselves puzzling over the appearance of ordered…Sat May 17 1997 - 01:00
Spiritual Journeys, edited by Stanislaus Kennedy RSC (Veritas, no price given)Even those who live and work with people on the margins of society occasionally make a mark on its hard-bitten centre, as is …Sat May 10 1997 - 01:00
A Civil Action, by Jonathan Harr (Arrow, £6.99 in UK)The true story of a complex civil action taken against two of America's largest companies by a group of families who have lost…Sat May 10 1997 - 01:00
Dude of the day cooks up thriller of the day"QUESTION: When you wipe a slate clean, what do you end up with? Answer: A blank slate. Alternative answer: FreedomFri May 09 1997 - 01:00
Finding a line to steer byLongitude, by Dava Sobel, read by David Rintoul (HarperCollins, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £7.99 in UK)Sat May 03 1997 - 01:00
The Physics of Star Trek, by Lawrence M. Krauss (Flamingo, £6.99 in UK)To boldly go is one thing, but for an eminent professor of physics to devote an entire, if admittedly slim, volume to discussion…Sat May 03 1997 - 01:00
Sweet Liberty: Travels in Irish America, by Joseph O'Connor (Picador, £5.99 in UK)It must have seemed like a good idea: send a young, enthusiastic Irish writer on a voyage around all the Dublins in America (…Sat May 03 1997 - 01:00
Cutting straight to the magicSUCH was the stir created by Mozart's opera The Magic white when it opened at the Freihaustheater auf der Wieden in Vienna on…Tue Apr 29 1997 - 01:00
Turtles All the Way Down, by Gaye Shortland (Poolbeg £6.99)This extraordinary out pouring continues the story of Tony, last encountered as ashes in an urn in Gaye Shortland's debut novel…Sat Apr 26 1997 - 01:00
The Egos Have Landed, by Angus Finney (Mandarin £7.99 in UK)Following the much discussed success of independent film companies at the recent Oscars ceremony, film wannabees would do well…Sat Apr 26 1997 - 01:00
Soft-boiled Plum in hard-boiled funYOU might think that a heroine who rejoices in the name of Stephanie Plum, wears Doc Martens and too much hairspray and drives…Sat Apr 26 1997 - 01:00
Blue Genes, by Val McDermid (Harpercollins, £5.99 in UK)A sassy tale, based around some dubious deeds at the lower end of the rock music industry and in the higher echelons of fertility…Sat Apr 19 1997 - 01:00
The World According to Mike Leigh, by Michael Coveney (HarperCollins, £6.99 in UK)Even though Secrets & Lies didn't win all those Oscars (did it win any of them? Does anybody remember these things?) there…Sat Apr 19 1997 - 01:00
Red Mercury Blues, by Reggie Nadelson (Faber & Faber, £5.99 in UK)The sheer quality of Reggie Nadelson's writing takes this tale of Russian mafiosi on the loose in New York out of the mystery…Sat Apr 19 1997 - 01:00
The Imaginary Girlfriend, by John Irving (Black Swan, £6.99 in UK)Most memoirs are mindnumbingly long this one is tantalisingly shortSat Apr 19 1997 - 01:00
Snaring the Other Tiger, by Ian Ward (Media Masters, Singapore, no price given)The Daily Telegraph's former Asian correspondent won't, surely, be popular in his native Australia following the publication …Sat Apr 19 1997 - 01:00
In the steps of John and SophroniusIN the spring of 578 AD, the Byzantine monk, John Mos and his pupil, Sophronius the Sophist, set off slaves in hand, on a journey…Wed Apr 16 1997 - 01:00
Recuperating WagnerMichael Tanner says his book is aimed, not at Wagner buffs, but at people who have only a limited acquaintance with his music…Sat Apr 12 1997 - 01:00
Barthes for Beginners, by Philip Thoday and Ann Course (Icon Books, £8.99 in UK)Ah, yes: the days of wine and roses, signifiers and signifieds, codes, constructs and claritySat Apr 12 1997 - 01:00
The Richer, The Poorer, and The Wedding, by Dorothy West (Virago, both £6.99 in UK)As a middle-class Bostonian black herself, Dorothy West is well placed both to reflect and to criticise the aspirations and prejudices…Sat Apr 12 1997 - 01:00
Turning the Handel to GO!MANY, many years ago when this writer was young enough to give the Bunty annual undivided attention, that augustorgan featured…Tue Apr 08 1997 - 01:00
Good Housekeeping Book of Short Stories, edited by Pat Roberts Cairns (Arrow, £5.99 in UK)Women's magazines are seldom given the credit they deserve for the lifeline they consistently offer to the short story form; …Sat Apr 05 1997 - 01:00
The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus, by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas (Arrow, £6.99 in UK)An advertising executive, and an electrical engineer look, at four thousand years of religion through the eyes of free masonry…Sat Mar 29 1997 - 00:00
Undone, by Michael Kimball (Headline, £5.99 in UK)If you were plotting an insurance scam which involved being buried alive, and you were waiting patiently, quaffing a couple of…Sat Mar 29 1997 - 00:00
Change of a tenor!FOR years he has been spoken of as a pretender to the tenor throne: but it should be obvious to anyone who has watched his career…Sat Mar 29 1997 - 00:00
The Sad Case of Harpo Higgins, by Eugene McEIdowney (Mandarin, £5.99 in UK)A holiday in Howth turns into a bit of busman's business in the third mystery to feature the kindly RUC superintendant Cecil …Sat Mar 29 1997 - 00:00
Jesus of the Apocalypse: The Life of Jesus after the Crucifixion, bye Barbara Thiering (Corgi, £6.99 in UK)The Australian Dead Sea Scrolls expert Barbara Thierlog caused quite a stir by the claims in her book Jesus the Man that Jesus…Sat Mar 29 1997 - 00:00
The fire in the eastANY writer approaching the troublesome nettle of relations between Islam and the West might be forgiven for grasping it somewhat…Sat Mar 29 1997 - 00:00
I, Phoolan Devi: The Autobiography of India's Bandit Queen, by Phoolan Devi (Warner Books, £6.99 in UK)It opens with the attempted rape of the author, aged 10, by, the unscrupulous elderly widower to whom she has been married by…Sat Mar 22 1997 - 00:00
X-treme Possibilities, by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping (Virgin, £4.99 in UK)What's this? An intellectual's guide to The X-Files? You might think so from the introduction, with its modest claim: "The X-…Sat Mar 15 1997 - 00:00
